Son of Persephone
by Kaerneif Erickson
Summary: A year after the fall of Gaea, new demigods have arrived, including a new child of the Big Three. Rachel and other campers have fallen into a coma, while some of the new campers have gone missing. A new generation of demigods take a quest to kill the earth-serpent in Delphi before it is too late. What they don't know, there are more dangers ahead. Set post HoO.
1. Chapter 1

-"Ever heard of the Minotaur? the Titans? Gaea? They are all real." explained Chiron, a white stallion from the waist down, but middle-aged brown haired man from the waist up, activites director of Camp Half-Blood.

Oh, I should introduce myself first. My name is Bryan Rodriguez, I'm a 12 year old demigod with no idea who my godly parent is. I'm from Mexico, but when I turned 6 we moved to New Jersey, for "work reasons" my mother said. I've been in Camp Half-Blood for a month, and it's been a year since the Giant War. And no, being mexican does not equate into being Latino. I'm thin, with messy black hair, fair skin and onyx eyes, and I wore the simple, Camp Half-Blood orange shirt, with some shorts and sneakers.

I had been staring blankly at the small, greek-styled classroom we were in, until Chiron called my name.

-"Mr. Rodriguez." he called, which popped my bubble of thoughts.

-"Yes, sir?" I answered, while the other 3 kids turned around to face me. A brunette girl about my age with green eyes, then a blond kid with stormy gray eyes, probably a son of Athena, and finally, a short, stubby kid with simple black hair. No idea who his parent could be.

-"Can you explain to us what I just said?" he asked. Of course I didn't know the answer, not like I had been paying any attention.

-"You were explaining..uh..how to kill a giant?" I tried, maybe if I was lucky..

-"Correct, and how do we kill a giant, Bryan?" I mentally sighed.

-"Stabbing them?" I said, making the other kids laugh, and even Chiron gave me a sideways smile. The Athena boy raised his hand and Chiron pointed at him.

-"You need a god and a demigod working together." he answered proudly.

-"Correct, Mr. Stevens." and the kid smirked, and turned around. "You should pay more attention, Mr. Rodriguez. It could save your life someday."

Yeah, whatever. I thought.

-"Also, Bryan. Remember: monsters don't die. You can kill them, but they don't die." he finished.

Seems legit.. then he dismissed us and we went out to the main campus, heading to our cabins as it was almost dinnertime.

-"Monsters don't die, Bryan." whispered the Athena boy in my ear while he walked by my side, then he rushed to his cabin. _Showoff_ , I thought. I simply kept walking to cabin Eleven, Hermes. Any kid who isn't claimed by their parent must stay there until they are, so I was currently stuck in it, which was always overcrowded.

I went to my bunk, just to check if there were any announcements. The cabin counselors, the Stoll brothers came in, along with the rest of the kids.

-"Okay guys, we're going to dinner. Capture the Flag against Camp Jupiter after it, so make sure to get your magical items, and whatever let's just go!" said Connor Stoll, and everybody else other than I cheered. We went to dinner, which was pretty boring anyways.

Camp Jupiter was another demigod camp, just that it had roman demigods instead of greek. Both camps were enemies for some time, but then they became allies during the Giant War and they've been doing training sessions and stuff since then. I saw a lonely guy in another table, the Hades table. It was Nico di Angelo, the son of Hades, probably the only person who's been friendly to me in camp. He had a boyfriend, (yes, he was gay) Will Solace from the Apollo cabin, but we weren't allowed to be in other tables during dinner so I figured that's why he was alone.

Dinner was over soon, and everybody had already changed to their battle armor, as we walked outside to the huge forest where we played Capture the flag. I wore a Celestial bronze chestplate, a medium-length Celestial bronze sword plus my bronze helmet. I imagined it would be very intense, considering it was the whole camp against the whole other camp. I could see a pegasus rider with a purple toga up in the air, probably the roman leader or something. Many other Camp Jupiter legionnaires were dressed in full Imperial Gold armor too, wielding their golden weapons and waiting for orders.

I didn't have any magical weapons, other than my Celestial Bronze sword and the usual armor. Since it was the entire camp, the Athena and Ares kids made a temporary alliance. Malcolm, the Athena counselor, explained the plan to everyone: we'll surround the romans and then force them into the center of the forest, while another group searched around for the flag. The Ares kids would be leading every small group to make sure no one got into trouble.

I was now at the left side of the forest, defending my post along with some Apollo kids and the Ares guy who lead us. Nothing had happened for the first minutes, which seemed like hours.

-"I think you should search for the flag, we'll be okay here." explained a girly voice, though I couldn't tell who they were because of their armor. I simply nodded and trailed off into the vast amount of trees. For some reason, I was always comfortable in the darkness. I could see perfectly fine, I felt faster and slightly stronger I'd say. In the distance, I saw a small clearing illuminated by the moonlight. I turned around for a second to see if I was being followed, and then THUMP.

-"Ow!" I groaned as I fell back to the floor. I had bumped into someone else, a little roman legionnaire, about ten or eleven years old. He was barely my chest-length, but I couldn't recognize him because of the armor.

-"Greek! Please don't kill me! I'm only a little kid, please!" he pleaded, though I wasn't even near drawing my sword.

-"Uh..alright..where is the flag though?" I got up.

-"I'll take you to it, but please don't kill me!" he kept going on and shaking with fear, as if I looked like a psycho sadistic killer about to mutilate him. Then, a devilish smile formed in my face. I had a pretty good idea on how to get the flag now..

-"No, I won't kill you, just take me to the flag, okay?" I held my hand, and then the kid got up too.

-"Follow me!" he rushed off. He was small, but he was pretty fast.

It seemed like forever, but we eventually got to a small clearing where a purple flag, with the S.P.Q.R letters on it stood proudly, guarded by about 4 armored legionnaires. They were all taller and stronger than me, looking like quarterbacks of a football team.

-"That's my brother." said the kid while pointing at one of them. "He's a son of Venus, centurion of the First Cohort." he continued. "Well, good luck kid!" he patted me on my back and disappeared into the forest before I could track him down.

I hid over a tree, looking at the roman squadron keeping the flag safe. Would they notice me there? About 5 minutes and nothing happened, until..

-"Graecus!" yelled one of them, looking exactly at my direction. All of them turned around, and I knew they had noticed me. I rushed off while one of them ran on the opposite direction, followed by another one chasing me. In no time, they were already surrounding me, their huge swords and spears drawn and ready to..hurt me, I guess?

-"Who brought you here?" asked one of them with a deep voice.

-"Uh.." I stuttered, since I didn't even know the kid's name. "Some kid told me to come here and take the flag." I answered.

-"Michael?" asked the same one to the one behind me.

-"Probably Aeneas again.." I noticed that was the same one the kid had pointed to me. "Well, there's nothing we can do." he said, which gave me a burst of hope. "Except taking you prisoner." he finished. Before I could react, both of them had grabbed me by the arms, and took me away. I had felt completely useless right there, and probably a shame to Camp Half-Blood, when everything turned pitch-black. I mean, darker than it was in a dark forest in the middle of nowhere. It was so dark, I couldn't see a thing even with my perfect sight. Then, the darkness like, vanished or something and I fell on my feet. Both legionnaires were on the floor, but they were both getting up already.

That was my chance, I thought as I rushed without a doubt through the trees, lept and snatched the flag, as the other legionnaires yelled. -"Hey!"

I somehow rolled in the air and landed, then kept running while the legionnaires chased me. Someone threw an Imperial Gold spear at me, which luckily sailed past as it nearly split the tree in half. Someone else slashed me but I had already drawn my sword and parried, probably the best sword move I'd done in my life, then I saw my old post, with the Apollo kids and all. Just that they were being attacked by a bunch of legionnaires, and they were losing badly. I felt guilty running past them with the flag, but if the romans caught me it would be over, plus there were already like ten or fifteen of them tailing after me.

-"Bryan!" I heard the same girly voice calling my name, as I saw the girl being attacked by 3 legionnaires in golden armor, but I just kept running. Sorry, no regrets.

-"Catch the Graecus!" yelled the centurion. Then I saw the huge battle in the forest: Clarisse la Rue, counselor of the Ares cabin, was heatedly fighting Jason Grace, the son of Jupiter. Usually Jason was in Camp Half-Blood but this time he sided with the romans to make it more "fair". They parried and slashed each other perfectly, and none seemed to be gaining the upper hand. Meanwhile, there was a random rhino charging at the Hermes kids, my cabin. Nico had summoned some zombies to even out the battlefield, but the romans were beating us badly.

The rhino noticed me with the flag, and then he..turned into a guy. Then I remembered: Frank Zhang, one of the roman leaders, son of Mars (Roman Ares). Someone had told me he could turn into animals or something, but I found it hard to believe. And I realized, he was coming straight at me with a spear bigger than myself, shouting orders in Latin. All the other Romans came at me.

-"Protect him!" ordered Clarisse, and the Greeks charged at the romans. More spears and then arrows flew at me, and then I felt a sharp pain in my left arm, the one holding the flag. Someone had shot me with an arrow, and it was already bleeding, making me feel exhausted faster. If I could pull out some darkness trick again, maybe I could get to our post, but I still didn't know what had happened. Eventually the romans will surround me and take their flag back. I veered to the side, trying to hide between the trees and the darkness, but the romans had covered everything. I gasped for air, completely exhausted from running so much. Clarisse was fighting 2 legionnaires at the same time, Jason and Frank were already gone so I felt relieved.

-"Hello there." said a voice which I recognized, of course it HAD to be Jason Grace, who somehow had found me. He had already drawn his Imperial Gold gladius, though I could only see his electric blue eyes in his roman helm. He slowly walked to me, Terminator-style, looking completely intimidating in his muscular build. His gladius sparked with electricity, ready to shock me to death. "Now, just give me the flag and we'll get over this already." he demanded, though I didn't answer. He didn't really sound much threatening, and he probably wasn't used to do so, so I wasn't scared at all. My wound was getting annoying, it felt like a bee sting only about a hundred times worse.

-"Grace!" called Nico's voice as he seemed to come out of nowhere. He gave Jason a crooked smile, as he drew out his Stygian Iron sword. This thing could take your soul if it cut you slightly. "Hey, Bryan." he greeted me, and Jason looked more excited than annoyed to beat the crap out of di Angelo. "Run, I'll hold him off." he said and I obliged. Blue sparks alighted the forest, though I knew Nico wouldn't lose as easy. He and Jason were old friends, but there was always this uncertainty on who would win in a fight between two sons of the Big Three (a.k.a Zeus, Poseidon and Hades) oh, and Percy Jackson too, but he was in college.

Finally, I saw the clearing where our flag was, with some Demeter and Aphrodite kids, a few zombies, plus the usual Ares kid commanding the group, about 30 feet from me. They cheered as I ran to them, the moonlight making the path clear. Then, lightning boomed from behind me, straight from the direction Nico and Jason were fighting. All the zombies crumpled down, and dissolved into dust. Had Nico really lost against him?

I was only about 20 feet from them, when a legionnaire guy tackled me from the side, brusing my badly and making me fall to the grass, which in turn, scratched my arms and bruised my waist even more, but I got up quickly. He tried to stab me, but I reacted and parried his gladius.

-"Give me the flag!" he demanded, while he hit me with the hilt of his sword on my hand, making me drop my Celestial bronze sword.

The Ares girl was already rushing to help me, which risked our flag to the other team, knowing the Demeter and Aphrodite kids weren't doing anything against the legionnaires.

-"Run along!" she shouted, while she attacked the legionnaire. In less than 5 seconds I heard a scream. A girly one.

My legs were hurting. My arms were bleeding. My hand was tired of gripping the flag for so long. My brain was telling me to drop on the grass, but my body just kept running. I reached the boundary line behind the clearing, slightly past where our own flag was and everything became fuzzy from there on.

-"We have a winner!" Chiron blew the conch horn, marking the end of the game. The entire forest burst into cheering, and then the pegasus rider also blew her horn, shouting orders in Latin which I didn't get. I collapsed along the grass, as everything shifted into darkness when I passed out.

Every now and then, the darkness cleared and I could see some glimpses of what was happening: I was being carried by the crowd's shoulders, though I couldn't recognize any face. Then a blonde guy with bright blue eyes was attending my wounds, and finally, I woke up in my Hermes bunk. My hair must have been very messy because it was covering my eyes.

-"Hey! You woke up!" said someone in the room as I rubbed my eyes. "I'm Erin, the Apollo girl you left in Capture the Flag."


	2. Chapter 2

-"Ugh..." I groaned, as I noticed the bandages on my left arm and around my head. "What happened?" I was seeing doubles, but I could notice she had waist-length black hair and a light-tanned skin, with bright brown eyes that gleamed like sunlight along with some bandages on her arms and legs.

-"Uh, well after you left me to fight legionnaires.." she began, reminding me of how I sold her just to get back with the flag. _It was totally worth it_ , I thought. "They overwhelmed us, and eventually we got knocked out. Good thing you got the flag though." she smiled, which made me feel even guiltier.

-"Sorry..eh.." my head ached horribly. "Is it tomorrow already? I mean morning?" I asked.

-"No, actually it's an hour past bedtime. Since it's a special visit from Camp Jupiter, Chiron allowed us to stay up late until midnight, and everybody's partying outside!" she sounded pretty excited to go out.

-"Were you taking care of me?" I asked her. I could see her gleaming eyes were hiding something. Her troublemaker smile didn't help either.

-"Nothing Bryan, I just wanted to talk to you about..you know.."

-"Yeah, I sold you to the romans, I know." I interrupted her, already tired of listening her repeat herself. Then again, she was clearly holding something back. She laughed a little, then she grabbed my hand.

"What are you-" I got interrupted as she helped me get up. I was still wearing the same clothes, but someone had taken away my armor. I got up from my bunk, then she dragged me to the door. It ached horribly walking, even while being helped.

-"Come on Bryan, I've seen you around camp. You're always alone, and you don't talk much. I've never seen you in a campfire singalong! You have to come out and have fun!" she said excited. She clearly had a crush on me, but I decided not to bring that up. As soon as I had that thought, she let my hand go, and I gained balance on my own.

"Plus, I want to tell you something too.." she added with a kind of shady tone. We walked out of the cabin area, and a flash of red sparks illuminated the starry sky, along with a loud, BOOM! sound, coming from the beach.

-"The Hephaestus cabin is trying out new fireworks!" she exclaimed in surprise, gasping in amazement as the sparks changed color, from blue to green to red again. It was pretty impressive, but then again it hurt me so much to walk I couldn't even think straight. More fireworks boomed, this time making faces such as Chiron's and other famous campers. The Hephaestus cabin's fireworks were always amazing, they made the sparks animate in such way it looked like a movie in the sky, with some couples like Percabeth, Jasper and others kissing. Which also made it slightly awkward for those who had the faces on the sky kissing.

-"Oh yeah, the party is at the amphitheater. But we're going to the forest."

-"My arm.." I groaned. I noticed the bleeding wound had already healed up, but still hurt to even move my joints.

-"So, I wanted to tell you.." she started to say while walked by the road to the forest. _This must be her confession of her love_ , I thought.

"During capture the flag, we were attacked by some legionnaires and..my best friend vanished. Then I got knocked out, but when I woke up he was still missing." her cheerful face had shifted to a grim expression. Woah..what the heck.

-"Who's your best friend?" I asked. I probably didn't know him, but it would give me an idea on where to look. Note, I'm only going to help her because she took care of me, not because we're friends or anything.

-"James, from the Hermes Cabin, do you know him?" she questioned me while more sparks boomed in the starry sky.

Of course I knew him. He was the only unclaimed Hermes camper other than I, and we arrived here on the same day. The only difference is that everybody else liked him.

-"Yeah, maybe we should ask Chiron or any of the nymphs if they have seen him." I suggested.

Erin nodded, and we both kept walking to the forest. Chiron was chaperoning the party, so the forest nymphs were our only option. Going back to the woods felt weird, specially when it was so late. At this time of the night, monsters were probably back. Some patchess of grass were charred, likely from the lightning Jason Grace had summoned to fight Nico. I wondered how the fight had gone while I ran back.

-"This is so dark.." she muttered under her breath, though I heard her.

-"Maybe because it's midnight?" I added, which for some reason made her laugh.

-"Haha, true."

No nymphs around there. The only light was coming from the stars and the fireworks which kept raging. I had brought my sword just in case, better safe than sorry, as my mom used to say.

-"James?" she called, but nothing remotely human seemed to hear. "James? Where are you?" she kept saying, though I couldn't see him anywhere. I was never scared of the darkness, but the tranquility in the woods was very unnerving. This was not the first time campers had disappeared in the woods, as my cabinmates used to say. These creepy stories weren't scary at all, nope. It was the calm and the fact that no wind seemed to blow in the forest.

-"I think he's not here, we should ask Chiron." I finally said.

-"Yeah, maybe you're right.." she sounded disappointed.

We turned around, and luckily no monsters saw us. And that's when I learned never to tempt the Fates. I saw two small yellow spheres in a bush, and then something I couldn't register lept out of it, making Erin scream.

-"What's that?!" she didn't have any weapons, but at least I had my sword.

-"I don't know, it's a.." I stuttered for a second, as my knees and arms started to tremble. The thing in front of us was an eight-feet tall, skeletal man with a policeman suit, yellow slits for eyes and a very disturbing fleshless grin. It had a jet-black gun, which seemed to be loaded because he was pointing straight at me. He seemed to laugh, which made a bone-chilling clattering sound.

"A spartus!" I blurted out, though I wasn't sure how I knew it. I never paid any attention to monster class, but I did know Chiron never told us about skeletons and the undead. I realized I could've sliced it in half by now, but I was stunned, my legs seemed to have frozen. Was this fear? I didn't know, since a bright flash of light blinded me for a second, coming from Erin's side. It couldn't have been a stray flare from the fireworks, it was pure light, which seemed to daze the spartus as much as it did to me. Then, I dashed to the spartus and swung my sword by his bony sternum, causing him to erupt into flames and leave a pile of ash behind.

-"Woah!" Erin gasped, as the light faded away.

-"It's here!" shouted a voice from behind us. Nico and Chiron arrived seconds after, which made Nico gasp in exasperation just like Erin, though Chiron kept his calm.

-"What are you doing here?" asked the latter calmly.

-"He-he just-" Erin stuttered. She was trembling. I realized I still had my sword drawn, so I quickly sheathed it away. Then Nico looked down at the pile of ash underneath my feet, his face completely surprised by it.

-"Did you..kill the spartus?" he asked. His sunken, dark eyes made him look like a zombie who just got out of bed. Then, came Will Solace who panted as soon as he arrived to us.

-"Chiron! It's Rachel, she.." he panted, "She's acting weird, her eyes turned bright green and.." he panted again.

-"Calm down.." said Nico. Will Solace put his arm around him as he got up.

-"Erin?" asked Will. Naturally, he would be worried about his sister being with a weird guy at this time of the night, in a dark forest. I explained to them how we were looking for James and then got attacked by the spartus, how it got blinded by a random flash of light and how I burned it up when I sliced it.

-"You what?!" Nico said, his usually calm expression shifted. He looked extremely worried, his mouth now open.

-"Wait." said Chiron now. "We'll attend this matter later, Nico. We should check what happened to Rachel first." and everyone agreed. Will was carrying Erin who had passed out from shock, while Nico and I walked by each other. He remained silent, though he turned to face me every few seconds, still with that worried expression. I also noticed the fireworks had ceased. We walked out of the forest, crossed the river and arrived to the amphitheater, which had a crowd of both roman and greek demigods, satyrs, some pegasi and even Mr D, the camp director, was serving the drinks. Couples were kissing, but Mr D didn't seem to mind at all, despite knowing Chiron would have a heart attack seeing this. The Apollo campers were doing a karaoke at the stage, while down there everybody was dancing, flirting or kissing.

-"Where is Rachel?" asked Chiron to Will, who was still carrying Erin like a princess.

-"She was-" he started, but he got interrupted by a red-haired girl with the Camp's usual uniform, who had bright green eyes and an open mouth. Her voice was followed by green smoke as she spoke with a ghastly, hissing deep voice.

-"You.." she said creepily. "Child of the Underworld." so, everybody turned to Nico naturally. The party kept going on normally, and no one seemed to turn around.

-"Rachel..? No.." he said, "That's the Oracle." Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Rachel Elizabeth Dare was our camp's oracle. She was tasked with reciting prophecies and such, but she hasn't recited any at all since the fall of Gaea.

Her eyes were fixated on me, for some reason. She rubbed her temples, then her jaw dropped like a gaping hole, with the creepy green smoke. The music stopped, then everybody else turned towards Rachel who stood up straight as she spoke, her voice becoming deeper and tripled:

-" _Greeks and roman shall slay the snake,_

 _it's hissing and roaring the land will shake._

 _In the land below, the dragon's bane they'll find,_

 _the spawn of death leads the way blind,_

 _in the Ancient Lands his blood will wake,_

 _a fate to both worse than death can make."_

At the last word, Rachel collapsed to the floor, though Nico caught her.

-"A prophecy!" someone from the crowd yelled. The crowd broke into a bunch of yelling, screaming, muttering and whisper. And finally, the weirdest event of the night: everything turned pitch-black, just like it had happened to me in capture the flag, for like 2 seconds. Everybody else stared at me. I rolled my eyes to see if it was someone else, but it was clear that they were looking only at me.

-"Bryan..!" called Chiron.

The only light was coming from above me, as I looked up, what I saw made my heart sink.

It was a deep-black but bright, two-pronged pitchfork, a bident. Oh no, I thought. Then everybody else kneeled at my direction, except Rachel who was unconscious.

Then Chiron said,

-"All hail Bryan Rodriguez, son of Hades, Lord of the Dead."


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey readers, here's chapter 3 though it's a bit late, -Kaerneif**

Why Hades? I kept thinking.

That same night, I was moved to the Hades cabin, which including me, only had 2 people. That was fine by me though, Cabin Eleven was always overcrowded. After the party, things got weirder and weirder. First, Rachel and several Apollo campers (excluding Erin and Will Solace), had fallen unconscious and taken to the infirmary. Everybody seemed wary of me, as if I had a strange disease or something. Even Chiron had been looking at me weirdly. The only person who seemed happy was the one I least expected, Nico.

-"How do you like it here?" asked Nico with a tad of sarcasm in his tone. This cabin HAD to be designed by a vampire, I mean: the walls were solid, black obsidian with greek fire torches and the beds were freaking coffins, with blood red pillows, and the neat, skull-adorned shrine on the corner. I was starting to wonder how Nico slept here alone and kept his sanity.

-"Um.. it's quite cheerful." I answered doubtfully.

-"Yeah, I didn't design it." he said with a light smile. "I've been trying to redecorate this place for an entire year, but I haven't got any help." He had changed into his pajamas, which of course were black with skull designs. Well, on the bright side the coffin beds were quite comfortable, or maybe I was just tired. Nico sat on his coffin bed, then faced me. It was weird knowing he was technically my older brother, and I had never known. Back in New Jersey, I had two step-brothers who treated me like trash, but Nico was family from the other side. He felt completely different.

"So, Bryan.." he began, "The prophecy Rachel recited, it probably was about you." He let that sink in for a while, something I had also thought about, specially after my claiming. I wanted to ask him many questions though, so I began from there.

-"Nico, how did you get claimed?" I blurted out, which made Nico scowl. Probably not a pleasant memory. He faced me, then sneered as if to say something, probably not nice. He started talking after this.

-"When I was ten, I lost my older sister, Bianca. She was a Hunter of Artemis, so naturally she'd go on a quest to find the goddess back when she was captured. During the quest, she sacrificed herself.." Nico's voice cracked, "To save a friend, Percy Jackson." he said, his voice a tone higher than usual. And yes, I knew who Percy was. He was a legend at camp, but right now he was in college in New Rome, with his girlfriend Annabeth. "When Percy came back," he continued. "He told me about my sister's death. We got attacked by spartoi, but I brought them down to the Underworld. Then, I fled camp and my father claimed me. I ventured to the Underworld and found a ghost named Minos, who taught me all about my powers." he finished while looking down, his hand pressed on his forehead as if thinking.

-"Wow, that's..intense."

-"Back to topic," he continued, "I was thinking, the prophecy tells you to go to the Underworld. This snake, I'm not sure..But the Ancient Lands mean Greece and Rome." I also knew Nico had been crucial in the Giant War, and he was experienced enough in these sort of things. If I had to go on a quest, he'd be the first person I'd take.

"But it's too much for a night, Bryan. We both should get some sleep now." he finished, though I wondered how the greek fire torches would let me sleep at all. I mean, they literally burned forever.

-"Well, thanks Nico." I said while yawning, then turned to my coffin bed. I totally felt like a vampire now. Nico did the same, and I drifted to sleep. I'd never had a real, demigod-level nightmare, until now at least. You see, demigods always have vivid dreams, and nightmares for that matter. But this was just disturbing..

I found myself trembling in pitch-black, inky darkness which seemed to coil around me, like a snake. Blood-red eyes snaked past me, as I heard a very inhuman, bone-chilling scream.

-"Please stop!" wailed another voice, as white mist crawled around my form. A long, silver grin stretched in front of me, with glowing, also silver sharp fangs. It then opened up and swallowed me. Rachel's voice echoed in the darkness, just that it was creepier than usual, as if the darkness itself was sentiently talking to me.

 _"In the Ancient Lands, his blood shall wake,_

 _a fate to both worse than death can make."_

I was trying to scream my lungs out and see if I could wake myself up, though nothing but white mist came out of my mouth.

-"You're useless..Child of the Big Three, can't do anything about this dream.." whispered another voice with a not-exactly creepy but not rather friendly voice. The endless darkness stretched across my dreamscape, seemingly forever. And then, I woke up panting heavily. It was still night, but the greek fire torches made some light. I was sweating, and my heart was racing like crazy, Nico was still asleep though. I waited for a while until I calmed down, and went back to sleep. I didn't have any nightmares after that, but that didn't help me rest.

I woke up with, feeling groggy and tired. In fact, I felt even more tired than when I passed out during Capture the Flag. The nightmares hadn't helped much.

-"Bryan? Are you awake?" asked Nico, who had already changed to his camp clothes. His black hair fell over his eyes, and the dark circles under them had already disappeared.

-"Yeah..I had a nightmare.." I growled, as I got up from my bed.

-"It happens to all demigods, specially to children of the Big Three." he comforted me. One would expect the son of Hades, or now, one of his children, to be less..nice. I groomed my messed up hair, and quickly changed to my camp clothes while Nico waited for me.

-"Chiron will probably talk to you about the quest after breakfast."

-"Figured, well you coming?" I said while I opened the door, my eyes taking a moment to adjust to the sunlight. Nico nodded and we both went to the dining pavillion. Other campers waved at Nico, but seemed to ignore me. I noticed the usual Apollo campers were missing, either unconscious or attending their siblings at the infirmary.

When we arrived, we sat by the Hades table together. It was weird being in the other side, and some of my previous cabinmates from Hermes were stealing glances at me. Actually, everybody in the hall seemed to be looking at the table, though I don't blame them. Get claimed by Hades during a party, you become a demigod celebrity. I knew the romans were not staying at camp, there were far too many for it to hold. They were probably at a nearby hotel in New York. The food platters came in, and we both ate the cheese, bread, grapes; the usual food at Camp Half-Blood.

-"Try this." said Nico as he offered me his glass, full of blood-red liquid. Yeah, my suspicions were right, Nico was definitely a vampire. I took the glass, partly because I didn't want him to suck my blood off, then drank it. Really, it was the best thing I've ever tasted, besides nectar of course.

-"Pomegranate juice. Children of the Underworld love it." he said with a sly grin. I took my glass and filled it with more juice, which probably made me look like a vampire too. Then I remembered: Nico was completely unharmed, even after capture the flag, and after fighting Jason Grace. I looked around for Jason, specifically a mop of blond hair that looked like Superman, sitting alone by the Zeus table. He waved at us, then adjusted his Imperial Gold glasses.

-"How did your fight go?" I asked my brother while he sipped some pomegranate juice.

-"Against Grace? We both passed out. He brought down some lightning, I sent some zombies, then we were exhausted." he said, which sounded kind of lame.

Chiron announced a War Council, so as soon as breakfast was over, all the counselors got together in a meeting at the Big House, to discuss about Rachel and the unconscious Apollo campers, as Nico told me. Chiron also wanted to talk to me after the council.

I stayed by the volleyball courts, watching demigods play before the meeting. I hadn't noticed, but a black-haired girl with bronze headphones was heading my way.

-"Hey, Bryan!" she waved happily as she approached. I stood up, and she hugged me, which felt a little awkward.

-"Hey Erin." I said coldly. Then I remembered she had passed out from shock yesterday. "Are you okay?" I asked.

-"Yeah, all thanks to Will. He's a great healer." she said with her cheerful grin. "Most of my cabinmates are unconscious, so I'm just hanging out with my other friends. Well, good luck with your meeting!" she said, then rushed back to her volleyball game.

-"See ya." I said, though I wasn't sure if she had heard me. The council was over, and the counselors came out: Jason, the Stolls, Will Solace and others, but I didn't see Nico. As Jason passed by me, he patted my shoulder.

-"Hey man. Sorry about yesterday." he said while extending his hand. "Jason Grace."

-"No problem. But I'm sure my brother beat you." I replied, while shaking it. Jason gave me a grin, his face contemplating how doubtful that was.

-"Yeah, you bet. Nico's inside, Chiron says he wants to speak with both of you." Then a girl called for Jason's name, he turned. "Good luck with your quest, Bryan." and he walked away. I quickly went to the Big House, climbed the wooden stairs and got to Chiron's office, were Nico and Chiron were talking.

-"Hello, Bryan. Sit please." Chiron said, and so I did. "We've been talking about this prophecy Rachel issued last night, and we believe it speaks about the monster terrorizing the island of Delphi, that which was slain by Apollo millenia ago, to save the Oracle of Delphi, the earth-dragon, Python." he explained with a grim look on his face. Maybe, this dragon-serpent or whatever it was, was the thing I saw in my dreams. I didn't want to bring that up now.

Nico took the word, -"So here's the problem: the earth-dragon is right now in the Temple of Apollo, in Delphi. You'll have to-"

I interrupted him. -"Wait, hold up a second. If the prophecy means a child of the Underworld, it could be you, or Hazel, right?" I hoped.

-"No, Bryan. Prophecies don't work like that." replied Chiron, "If you were claimed right after the prophecy, it's clear it meant you going on the quest. But fear not, someone has already volunteered to help you."

Someone would volunteer for me? Really, there had to be something wrong with that person. Of course, it had to be Nico. He could teach me how to use my powers, take me to Delphi and bring me back safely.

-"By the way, it's not me." said Nico, as if reading my thoughts.

-"Ah..silly me to think that" I said sarcastically while rolling my eyes. Chiron smiled.

-"In fact, it's a friend from Camp Jupiter." he said. _What? Camp Jupiter? I didn't know anyone at all from there,_ I thought. This kept going weirder and weirder. "You'll meet him later."

-"Alright, so.." Nico began, "There's only one way to get to Delphi in such short time."

-"What do you mean short time?" I asked. Seriously, this only kept getting worse every second.

-"Rachel, and other campers from both camps have fallen into a coma, Bryan. The earth-dragon has taken over the Temple of Apollo, breaking the power of prophecies and hurting all those with it's gift." Something sank inside me as he said that. "Something let Rachel issue one last prophecy, but they won't wake up until it is slain."

-"So, I have to kill this serpent, in how much time?"

-"We don't know, but it's not a long time." Nico answered. "As I was saying, the only way to Delphi in such short time, must be shadow-travel."

Made sense, just the fact that I couldn't shadow-travel, and Nico couldn't help me.

-"There's actually another way, Nico." Chiron added, "The East Wind, Eurus. He will be able to help you. He should be right now in the East Wind's palace, in Virginia. But before you pay the East Wind a visit, you must venture to the Underworld, and retrieve the weapon to slay the earth-dragon."

-"Okay, but isn't the Underworld in like, Los Angeles?" I asked.

-"There's a shortcut in Central Park, the Door of Orpheus. You should have no problem searching for it." Nico said while he played with the skull ring on his hand.

-"That's the closest we can take you, so you should prepare at once. Remember, you can take two people with you on the quest, and one has already volunteered. Chiron said.

-"When do I leave, then?"

-"As soon as you can, we don't have much time. Now go Bryan, get ready for your quest and look around for a third member. I'll meet you by the entrance at noon." he finished, and the meeting was dismissed.

My mind was buzzing with thoughts by then, such as who would be the third member, how I'd get to Delphi in such little time, how I didn't know how to use my powers, and a trillion questions more. Nico took me to the cabin, where he helped out to make my pack.

-"Don't worry Bryan, it's your first quest and I know it's overwhelming. You'll learn how to use your powers." Nico tried to comfort me. He even taught me how to concentrate better on my surroundings, how to sense the dead and blend in with the shadows. "Percy Jackson has done worse things, it should be no problem for you." he also said.

At noon, Nico took me to the camp's entrance, where Chiron was waiting with Argus, the camp's security guard who had eyes in every part of his body, even his tongue. There was someone else I didn't manage to recognize though, could that be..?

A small, light-skinned kid with short, dusky-chocolate hair and the weirdest eyes I've ever seen. They were changing from blue, brown, green and even red and then stopped back in blue. He wore a Camp Jupiter purple shirt, with the classic S.P.Q.R letters on it, denim jeans and simple black boots.

-"Bryan!" the kid called, as he ran over to Nico and I with a huge grin on his face. "It's me, from capture the flag!" he exclaimed as we climbed Half-Blood Hill.

-"This is Aeneas Kahale, son of Venus." said Chiron.

-"Roman Aphrodite." Nico whispered into my ear which I thanked, as I had no idea who Venus was.

-"Aeneas has volunteered to help you, as completing a quest will let him rejoin the legion." Chiron added.

-"Uh yeah, Chiron..about the quest." I said, "I haven't found a third member yet."

-"Nico! Bryan!" called a voice from behind us, Will Solace and Erin arrived, followed by Jason and a native-skinned girl who held his hand.

Nico sighed heavily. -"He couldn't be doing this, or could he..?" he muttered under his breath. Jason's glasses fell, making him fall over nothing face first on the grass. Aeneas couldn't help but laugh, along with Nico and the Apollo siblings.

-"Owe.." Jason groaned, as the other girl gave him his glasses, she was trying hard not to laugh. Jason got up and dusted himself off.

-"I'm coming with you!" Erin happily said. _What the hell.._

-"Uh sure." I simply said. Will gave Erin her pack, then Jason approached to me after giving Nico a high-five. Nico looked like he was about to slice Jason up, and the girl was helping Erin with her pack, her clothes or I don't know.

-"I wanted you to have this." said Jason, as he gave me a small brown bag, tied up with leather. The bag jangled with metal as I took it. "Drachmas, you'll need them for the Iris messages."

-"Thanks." I replied while putting the bag away.

-"Then it is decided: Erin Artist, Bryan Rodriguez and Aeneas Kahale. You three demigods shall head to the Ancient Lands, and slay the earth-dragon. Good luck." Chiron said, and then Aeneas and Erin cheered.

-"Take care." Nico said while he looked at me. I realized how tall Nico was compared to me, and the fact that I looked exactly like him, only smaller and weaker. Will went over to Nico and put his arm around him after saying goodbye to his sister.

We went over to the van, as the other demigods and Chiron waved back to us. We all waved back, as Argus drove us out of camp.


	4. Chapter 4

**All right, chapter 4 done. Next chapter will feature some old enemies to kill Bryan and friends :) -Kaerneif**

We all sat in the back of the van as Argus drove us through Long Island, heading for Central Park. He remained silent, instead putting some depressing, 70's music which seemed to come from the time my dad was born.

-"How's it going?" asked Aeneas, who put his hand up. Erin quickly high-fived him and introduced herself.

-"Erin ... Daughter of Apollo."

-"Aeneas Kahale, probatio from the First Cohort. Oh, and son of Venus." he added cheerfully.

-"Probatio?" I put in, joining the conversation.

-"Yeah," his face shifted, becoming serious. "It means I'm not a full member of the Legion yet. I was in the First Cohort, but they kicked me out after "selling the match" in capture the flag."

-"Oh yeah, we won." Erin said with a kind of cocky grin. Aeneas remained silent after that. "What about you, son of Hades?"

-"Please don't call me that." I growled back.

-"Alright, Underworld kid?" she giggled. I sighed, then rolled my eyes.

-"And I'll have to stand this the whole quest? Awesome.." I blurted out, prompting Erin to laugh. How is that even funny? See, this is why I think she has a crush on me.

We all remained silent after this. I stared through the window, and it wasn't soon until Aeneas fell asleep on top of Erin who fell asleep on top of me. Her head was now in my lap, her bronze headphones glistening, which made everything the more awkward. The traffic was horrible as soon as we left the highway. We reached Queens, with cars and taxi's at every turn we made. Manhattan wasn't any better, but it wasn't soon until I fell asleep too, my head resting on the window. It was a short nap, so no scarring nightmares this time.

-"Wake up, sleeping beauty." said Erin's voice right into my ear, which did the trick. The sky was a shade of caramel and red, late evening, with the usual line of cars and taxis in New York. Argus had driven us to an avenue I couldn't recognize. The signpost was blurry.

-"3.14 Avenue? " I said as I glanced over at the sign.

-"No, it's called PI avenue. It's made for demigods going to Central Park, helps you dodge the traffic." answered Aeneas.

-"Yeah, apparently they made it after the Titan War to make it easier. It's hidden by Mist so mortals can't see it." Erin added.

-"Neat." I cut in, as Argus parked us at the side of the street. There were no cars nearby, and there was a huge sign held by two posts, "D.O.O." it said. We dropped off, carrying our backpacks as Argus waved with his creepy eyed hand. The eyes winked, and Argus drove away. We all crossed the street, until we reached the D.O.O sign.

-"What does that mean?" I asked, but none of us dared to step in. It seemed weird that were three young kids alone in a dark street when it was getting dark, any mugger could come in and take our money or worse, but no one seemed to notice us. The Mist was sure a strong force.

-"Not sure. You're the Underworld expert here, you should know." Erin retorted.

-"Let's just go in!" Aeneas said excitedly, and then walked through the mini-arch. Nothing happened, so we both followed. As soon as I entered, I subconsciously put my hands to my temples, and something seemed to click. I gasped, my eyes widening and my pupils dilating.

-"What's wrong?" Erin asked.

-"West." I barely barked, my heart racing now. The blood in my veins seemed to flow faster and faster.

-"Let's go East." said Aeneas, as if to contradict what I just said.

-"No, no, no. It's west from here, about two hundred steps." I said, as this weird sensation seemed to wear off. Then I remembered what Nico had told me some hours before:

-"Children of Hades can sense the Underworld. As soon as you get close to the Door of Orpheus, you'll know where it is exactly. It might take some time to get used to, but you'll be able to sense the dead after that.." Nico's voice echoed in my mind.

-"That's it!" I exclaimed. "The Underworld sense or whatever it's called, it's working!" as soon as I said that, I had a miniature headache, followed by intense coughing and a migraine.

-"Okay, then where to go?" Erin asked.

-"Wait guys, we HAVE to go over there, it's very important." Aeneas put in, pointing at the exact opposite direction I was feeling.

-"Why? It's not like there's another door or anything over there." I said, but Aeneas ignored me. He simply sprinted through the pathed way before we could get him back.

-"Aeneas!" Erin called, but he kept running. Without a second thought, we trailed behind him, though he was fast. We passed by trees, some tourists who didn't steal a glance, and even the Bow Bridge, where Erin nearly tripped over and I had to catch her. We both had lost track of time, until it was so dark only the lamposts illuminated our way. Aeneas stopped in front of a Victorian-style fortification, which I have read about in brochures, the Belvedere Castle. He turned to face us.

-"Here it is guys!" he shouted as we approached. Erin was panting, and so was I. The darkness again seemed to coil around me, making me feel lighter and stronger.

-What..is..it..?" Erin panted. Her bronze headphones gave off some light, though I wasn't sure if she was listening to music all-day. Some ruffling could be heard in the trees and bushes around, probably owls or small animals. Some frogs were croaking. I could barely sense the Door of Orpheus right now, only a slight tingling in the back of my head.

-"There's a running legend in Camp Jupiter, about the Belvedere Castle." Aeneas began, the light of the lamposts illuminating his eleven-year old kid face, giving it a sinister but kind of childish glow. He smirked, then kept talking. "The Castle was built by Roman demigods, two children of Minerva-"

-"Who's Minerva?" I cut in. Then I realized how ignorant that had sounded. The croaking and ruffling ceased, total silence now filling the castle entrance.

-"Roman Athena." Erin whispered over.

-"As I was saying, two children of Minerva who fled Camp Jupiter. They thought Minerva was too..undignified by the Romans, who favored other war gods like Mars, Bellona, the list goes on. So they built the castle and other places in the U.S, but they hid something in this place. Something important."

-"So, what did they hide?" I asked.

-"I don't know." Aeneas laughed. Okay, this officially got sinister. The lamposts started to flicker aritmically, making this look like a scene from a horror movie. The total silence didn't help either. Suddenly, the lamposts all turned off, though it meant no problem for me as I could see perfectly in the dark.

-"Well, let's go in!" Aeneas decided, stepping up the stone stairs, as we followed him.

The castle wasn't really impressive, for the work of roman demigods. There were cracks in the stone all over the place, vines crawling in the walls and several locked doors, that we didn't care about. Aeneas kept leading us around, his imperial gold gladius illuminating the way, as if he knew exactly where to go. It was humid and cold by now, and the place seemed to go on forever with the locked doors.

-"Here it is." Aeneas suddenly stopped, while he pointed his gladius at a small room, with some words in Latin I couldn't read.

-"Minerva. That's what it says." Aeneas read. He opened the wooden door with an horrible creak. Inside, there was nothing but some skeletons and a few tables with blueprints.

-"There's nothing here." Erin put in. "Don't try talking with the skeletons Bryan." she added, and Aeneas giggled.

-"Haha, very funny." I said, with a dead serious (no pun intended), look on my face. I stared at a skeleton, pretty sure I couldn't talk with it. The skeleton had a crooked grin on it's face, making it the more creepy. It's hollow eye sockets stared back at me, and I simply turned away. Aeneas took the blueprints and put them away, saying that it was important for Camp Jupiter. We walked out, with Aeneas again on the lead. The tingling from the Door of Orpheus came back, pointing me the direction it was in. As we went out of the castle, the trees ruffled even more, though there was no wind. The tingling turned into a mini-headache again, my Underworld sense kicking in.

-"Something's close." I said, my heart racing and seemed to skip a beat.

-"What is?" Erin asked.

-"I don't know..but it's certainly not alive."

The trees ruffled again, as several "things" lept out from them. It was impossible to recognize them, as if the shadows were melding around them. Aeneas shrieked, as a very not-alive and bone-chilling screech hollered in my ears, and probably theirs too. Then my Underworld sense simply stopped, as what I saw made me want to scream. There was a bald, clad in black garments, humanoid creature, followed by many more, about five of them. which circled us. Their eyes were blood-red, and their skin was as pale as snow.

-"Strigoi!" I said, though I wasn't sure how I knew. Similiar to how I knew the spartus' name, I seemed to know the vampires' that surrounded us. They bared their fangs, and hissed, as if ready to kill us.

-"That's impossible..they aren't Greek monsters." Aeneas said, while smacking one of the vampires with his gladius. "They are Romanian monsters. How did they get here?" The vampire hissed back, and all of them lept in synchrony, about to end our quest for good.

-"Vampires? Pfft, easy." Erin cockily said, with a sly smirk on her face. "Watch this, son of Hades." and then a burst of light surrounded us, so bright I was blind for a full minute. I heard screeches and wails, then the sound of a deep hiss. The sound of a monster disintegrating, or in this case, monsters. I rubbed my eyes as my vision cleared, and all around us were heaps of ashes and dust. Aeneas and I turned in awe to face the Daughter of Apollo.

-"How did you do that?! That was amazing!" yelped Aeneas in excitement, as he rushed to Erin. Her face still had that huge grin, her waist-length black hair falling over her face. But she seemed a bit tired, her face growing weary.

-"I'm a Daughter of Apollo, I can control light you dummies." she put in, though it was the first time I've seen someone do that. "Not all of us have that power, though. In fact, I'm the only demigod I know that can do that." she explained.

-"That was..impressive." I said. Then I remembered our quest. "We've lost too much time, we have to go back to the Door of Orpheus." More ruffling, and then a whole squadron of strigoi lept at us. I casually slashed my sword at one, disintegrating it instantly.

-"These guys are weak.." I said while pursing my lips. Aeneas swung his gladius at another one, sending it straight to Tartarus. We rushed back to the Door of Orpheus, slicing and disintegrating strigoi as we went. They were vampires for sure, but they were very weak monsters. In about another hour, without saying a word we arrived to a pile of rocks, where my Underworld sense buzzed to the maximum.

-"Here it is." I said, pointing my sword to the pile of rocks.

-"Great, you found a pile of rocks Underworld kid." Erin replied.

-"This is the Door of Orfius?" Aeneas asked as he approached to the rocks, poking them with his gladius.

-"Door of Orpheus," I corrected. "And yes, this pile of rocks will take us to the Underworld. Someone has to sing though." Both Aeneas and I turned to Erin, who looked completely innocent. "Daughter of Apollo?" I said with a sarcastic tone and a smirk.

-"Ah yes, of course." then she started singing A whole new world from Aladdin. Her voice was definitely sweet, but I hated that song. Time passed by as she sang, but the pile of rocks remained the same. She sang more Disney princess songs, making this entrance to the Underworld look like a Broadway musical. I looked around to see if any tourist or security guard saw us, thinking we were a cult singing to the rocks, but no one around. A strigoi approached behind me, and I stabbed it in the chest sending it to Tartarus.

-"These guys never learn.." I said. Erin turned to me, her eyes disappointed.

-"It doesn't work, son of Hades." she broke in. My left eye ticked at this nickname.

-"Don't call me that." I replied. Aeneas had crouched to the rocks, still poking them with his gladius to see if they reacted.

-"Open sesame!" he yelled. Nothing happened. "I think it wants YOU to sing." Aeneas pointed out.

At this thought, it was an instant reply. -"Sorry, no. I'm not singing to a pile of rocks. I'd rather just go to Los Angeles and take the stupid weapon from there and-" as I said that, I remembered Rachel and Erin's cabinmates. Her gleaming, brown eyes were full of worry and sadness. I sighed. _Since when do I care about that?_ I thought to myself.

-"Fine. I'll sing, just don't tell anyone about this, or I'll bring you myself to my father down there." I snarled. Both of them laughed, with Erin whispering to Aeneas things like "Get the camera!" or "Watch the windows shatter". At first, I didn't know what to sing. I mentally pondered my playlist, which was mostly Death Metal.

-"Okay, now I know." I managed to say, with the jitters crawling in my stomach. I opened my mouth, and a melody similar to a dying cat or a Justin Bieber song came out. I sang _Dumb ways to die_ in the most silly manner. Aeneas was barely not laughing, and Erin had to look away to not die from laughter. That could be another dumb way to die, I thought. When I finished, the ground started to rumble, making all of us fall on our butts.

-"It worked!" Erin shouted.

-"Oh gee, I didn't notice." I remarked. The ground stopped rumbling, and the pile of rocks had disappeared. Instead there was a dark, marble staircase which seemingly had no end. We got up, and I entered first, the light of my sword and Aeneas' gladius lighting the way.

-"Wait guys, let me lead the way." Erin suggested, but I grabbed her arm. -"I'm the Underworld expert here, so no.."

-"I can light the way, it's fine." as she said that, a sphere of light formed in her palm, alighting the staircase completely. I mentally sighed at her stubborness.

-"Okay, I'll tell you where to go."

And then, we climbed down the seemingly infinite staircase to the Underworld.


	5. Chapter 5

**Sooo finally chapter 5 :D -Kaerneif**

-"Are we there yet?" Aeneas asked for the 100th time, his eyes shifting colors like a disco ball with different lights.

-"Yeah, we're officially in the Underworld now." I replied, my head booming from the annoyingly head-cracking Underworld sense. The air smelled of death, which for some reason I found very pleasant. I scolded myself mentally for that, but the others didn't seem to mind the smell. The steps were cracked, wet and steep, and the staircase was so narrow we had to walk in a line, with Erin leading, me in the middle and Aeneas behind.

It seemed like hours, and Erin's light was starting to fade. Her eyes were growing tired, and she started yawning every now and then. I concentrated on my Underworld sense, just like Nico had taught me.

-"Focus, Bryan. River Styx." I muttered, then closed my eyes. I could hear the roaring of a river in the distance, exactly 12 meters northwest from us. I could even hear the wailing of souls, those damned enough to swim in the Styx. I opened my eyes, as we kept stepping down the staircase, careful enough not to fall to our deaths. It wouldn't be a long trip to the Underworld, on the bright side. Our steps echoed back, the roaring becoming intense every second. In no time, we emerged at the base of a cliff of black sand. To our right, the black waters of the Styx roared into a cascade. To our left, the black walls of Erebos, I recalled, stood protecting a castle, dad's castle, blazing with intense flames, wailing from souls and the Furies scouting around the perimeter.

-"Look at that.." Erin said half-dazed, pointing at the Styx. It was full of broken toys, random garbage and ripped up diplomas.

-"Those are the dreams and wishes that never came true, those oaths that were made, and never fulfilled." I replied. It seemed weird, but I felt like I knew everything about this place.

-"I don't like this place." Aeneas said. We kept walking across the river's shore, then we suddenly stopped, both Erin and Aeneas staring at me. Erin had now turned pale, the sphere of light was barely a flash in her palm. I felt buzzing on the left side of my head. For some reason, my left side let me sense the monsters in the Underworld, and my right side let me locate the places. I didn't like it, but it came in very handy. I could feel Cerberus, the puppy that guarded the EZ-DEATH line. I could also sense the Furies scouting around the land, hellhounds playing around in the Fields of Punishment, and so on.

"Well, where is the weapon?" asked the son of Venus. I tapped my right temple as he did, closing my eyes again. "Where is the weapon?" I thought. Nothing came to me.

-"Nothing. We need a clue on what we're looking for, or I won't be able to locate it." I figured out.

I could hear someone calling my name, and the buzzing on my left side intensified. It was a weird english accent, along with some hissing every now and then.

-"You guys hear that?" I asked, looking around. I saw the usual things you'd see in the Underworld: Ghosts, Furies and hellhounds. Oh, and some stone statues that seemed to be glaring at the Styx.

-"No.." Erin replied half-heartedly. Since we fought the vampires earlier, she'd been exhausting herself. She had to sing several times, and then keep the light sphere for hours while we climbed down to the Underworld. Even if I could do that, I would've passed out already.

For an instant, I heard something whisper in my head. "Watch out!", I understood. I immediately looked around, the statues seemed to get closer to us. Then, it all happened so fast, I don't know how I survived.

-"Watch out!" Aeneas shouted, his gladius nearly decapitating a weird, feminine creature with red snakes for hair.

-"Demigodsssssss.." hissed the tall monster-woman with rather green snakes for hair and black sunglasses. She wore a simple white dress adorned with white lilies, revealing her sharp talons and long, clawed hands. Her crooked smile had yellow, fanged teeth dripping with..probably poison.

-"Medusa.." I spat out. Well, pretty much any demigod worth his money would recognize who this monster was. I didn't remember her sister's names however.

-"That's right, Bryan Rodriguez, son of Hades." she hissed, her lips curling every time she pronounced an s. "Our new lord will pay us well if we bring them your head." she added.

-"New lord?" I asked. I noticed her sisters stood in the back, with her in the middle. Erin and Aeneas were already geared up, with their bow and gladius respectively.

-"You'll find out soon. I want my..beautifulness back, my dear." she grinned. I felt a surge of boldness in my words and replied answered.

-"It will be a short trip to Tartarus for you then, Medusa." then drew my Celestial Bronze sword.

"Don't look into her eyes!" shouted Erin. Duh Erin, I thought while rolling my eyes Everybody knows not to look into Medusa's eyes.

The 2 gorgons hissed, but Medusa seemed to trail back, as if examining her prey before killing it. It took me an entire 5 seconds to process the fact that we were in a battle, but Aeneas was faster, he lunged towards the gorgon on the right and tried to stab it with his gladius like a good roman, though it simply dodged.

-"Aw..look how cute he is, Euryale!" said the gorgon, who for some reason had Bargain mart clothes and a silver tray with cheese wieners. I wondered how it would fight with that, but who cares.

-"Bryan, do something!" Erin ordered, while shooting arrows at the red snake-haired gorgon, though all of them missed. -"Nice shots!" I sarcastically replied.

"You should take one, they are free samples!" said the Bargain mart one with a very creepy and anticlimatic grin. I tightly gripped my Celestial Bronze sword, and charged at Medusa, looking at the floor to avoid petrification. Then I heard a wail, as I noticed Aeneas had finished his enemy.

-"Stheno, you idiot! Why are you selling those right now-" she was cut by her dissolving into dust. Then I felt something, like a faint, faint whisper, telling me to cover my ears and so I did.

The wailing must have been horrible, because Erin and Aeneas were left completely dazed, to the point they both dropped their weapons. Sweat trickled down my face, as I felt a surge of anxiety in my body. Medusa stared right into Erin's eyes while she threw her bronze knife at the red-haired gorgon, causing her to dissolve into dust, but also turning her into stone.

"Erin!" I managed to yell, but it was too late. Aeneas had already snapped out and was already about to stab Medusa, but the snakes in her hair snapped at him, causing him to stagger. I tried lunging to Medusa while she was distracted, but my legs wouldn't even move. She calmly stared at Aeneas, turning him to stone.

"No!" I shouted as the feeling of uselessness and fear washed through myself. I usually never felt fear, not even when some skulls talked to me during Dia de los Muertos back in Mexico, or when I literally reanimated the class skeleton at school (okay, maybe this whole child of Hades business actually made sense now), and certainly not when the romans had found me in capture the flag. But this monster..Medusa was just plain scary. Could she be the snake I saw in my nightmare?

-"You're next, son of Hades." she cackled, along with demonic laughter that echoed in the Underworld. I charged straight at her, looking down and ready to slash like crazy until I killed her, but Medusa simply slapped my sword down, then lifted me by my shoulders. I could already feel the poison of the snakes snapping at me pelting my face. _Much skill, very heroic_ , I thought with a Doge voice in my head.

So that's how it ends.. Bryan Rodríguez, son of Hades, eaten by Medusa on his first quest. Didn't even meet my father. The fear I felt was so intense, I couldn't dare to open my eyes, which technically was good for me, but still.

I mentally scowled, as everything turned into intense darkness. The same way I had felt in Capture the Flag, when I got captured by the romans. How I couldn't do shit to Medusa or her sisters, how my childhood plainly sucked, how my father could claim me but never talk to me.. For a moment, I thought that was how death felt like, but then I opened my eyes and fell, while Medusa staggered backwards for a second, which gave me enough time to pick up my broken sword.

-"Open your eyes!" I demanded, as I put the Celestial Bronze shard on her eyes, causing Medusa to flail wildly, her claws grazing over at my arm. As blood trickled down my left arm, her skin turned stony gray, and so she petrified. Then I had realized what I had done; apparently that wave of darkness had summoned skeletal hands to grab her, which gave me enough time to petrify her with the sword shard.

I sighed for a moment, then I realized both of my friends had turned to stone, thought I couldn't help but pant. I felt like I was in the safest place in the world, that kind unnerving calm before the storm feeling. Time seemed to freeze, as I heard a voice behind me.

-"Well done, my child." I instinctively turned, but saw nothing.

"Turn around, Bryan." I obliged, looking at the black-robed pale man with straight, jet black hair and these weird eyes that looked like frozen tar. He wore a simple smile showing no teeth, and he seemed to radiate darkness as he moved. "You've made me proud, I would say." his voice was deep. His expression was just like I felt, completely calm..but still neutral with a slight tone of distaste.

-"F-Father?" I stuttered. For some reason, I felt as if the world had disconnected from me for a second.

-"Yes, I am your father, Bryan. I am Hades, Lord of the Dead, ruler of the Underworld etc, etc." he replied. "Let's skip the titles, our time is short Bryan, so I must tell you the gorgons were just a test. I wanted to prove if you were worth of this." he waved his hand, as a sword as black as his hair materialized out of thin air, with hilt and all. Everything seemed to get darker as it appeared. I gripped the black leather hilt, as the sword felt as light as a feather in my hand and then it became a simple black ring on my finger.

-"A stygian iron sword, enchanted with gorgon's blood, made specifically to kill the earth-serpent. Also, it can turn into a ring when you're not using it. Just be careful when cleaning it..you don't really want your soul getting absorbed and..yeah." he added.

Didn't know if to feel thankful or worried about it, since for one, before my dad even knew me, he tried to take me with him, just not alive. -"Thanks?" I thanked him doubtfully. First things first though.

-"So um, dad. I kind of need you to heal my friends, you know uh.. those right there." I pointed to the two stone statues on the floor. Their expressions were hard to read, but they probably looked impressed by Medusa's beautiful eyes. So beautiful they were petryfing.

-"Use the gorgon's blood, Bryan. It can heal anything, even petrification." he said while his form flickered for a second. I knew he had to go, but I had too many questions on my mind. Specially why would any parent "test" his son with angry, demigod-eating snakes on his first quest, or how could I use my powers properly now.

-"Yes, I know you have many questions, but time is short. You have 5 days to go to Delphi and slay the earth-serpent, so you must talk with Eurus, god of the East Wind in Virginia." he put his cold hand in my hair, which gave me the strangest sensation in the world, it felt completely unnerving but also reassuring. "There's something worse than Python, Bryan. You're not Awakened yet, and there are worse dangers up ahead."

-"Awakened? What do you mean-" I got interrupted by his form disappearing, still wondering what the heck "Awakened" meant.

I looked around for the gorgon's blood, totally poker-faced and quickly poured it down Aeneas' and Erin's stone mouths, which pooled there as they were stone. In no time, their gray skin faded and regained color, and they both gasped for air. I explained what had happened, skipped the darkness, skeletal hand Underworld-y stuff part and told them about my meeting with my father.

-"That's great!" said Erin while grinning, ever happy. The gorgon's blood must've recovered her completely, as she was not exhausted anymore. "Virginia then? How will we get there though?"

-"I know how!" Aeneas jumped, with that look little kids give you when they have an idea. Probably a dangerous and very stupid one. "We need to go outside, I have an awesome idea!"

-"Well Death boy, take us outside of this place, before any other snake women come and try to kill us." said Erin with her classic, Daughter of Apollo look of happiness while patting me in the back.

-"Death Boy..?" before I could ask her about that, she was already dragging Aeneas and I through the floor up staircase-tunnel to Central Park.


	6. Chapter 6

When we walked out, it was already night, which in New York meant nothing. I wondered what Aeneas' plan was, because last time we followed him, a bunch of ghost vampires tried to kill us. Erin happily kept dragging us out to the street, where a line of taxis waited for customers. Surely he wasn't expecting a taxi to take us from New York to Virginia, or was he..?

-"Taxi!" he called, as he walked up to a fancy-looking yellow cab, it was clean and bright, and the seats looked quite comfy from the window. Erin and I followed. Then Aeneas turned around to face us.

-"Watch this guys! It's something I don't like doing, but since this is an emergency.." he turned again, then he smiled at the driver. He was a middle-aged man, with caramel skin and short, black hair.

-"Yes young man? Where are your parents?" he asked. His face was something between a bulldog and a frog, as if he'd never gotten enough pay on the job.

-"We'd like you to take us to the nearest and fastest transport to Virginia, sir!" he said. For some reason, I just felt compelled to help him out as I heard him talk. Then I snapped out, though the drivier was smiling back to him. His face alighted with happiness and joy.

-"Sure, young man! Get in!" he opened the doors and I looked at Erin, who looked as surprised as I, then we got in.

-"What was that?" I asked Aeneas, who was grinning, as always.

-"Yeah, what was that?" agreed Erin.

-"It's a gift for children of Venus, charmspeak," he said "It lets you talk people into doing what you want." he finished cheerfully. Maybe this kid wasn't as useless as he seemed, I thought. He casually killed one of the gorgons and found us a taxi to Virginia or whatever right away.

-"That's awesome. It will be useful if we are to convince Eurus to help us." I added.

Both Erin and Aeneas agreed, but the driver seemed to not care about the conversation. I guessed that could be the Mist acting up, even if I didn't really understand what it was well.

I sat at the left window, and kept staring at the bright lights of Times Square, and noticed an Asian girl advertising a perfume brand, who looked vaguely familiar to someone at camp. I hadn't noticed but I kept playing with the ring Hades had given me. I wondered if it would randomly turn into a sword and pierce someone by accident if I took it off without noticing, but I shrugged it off.

-"Awkward silence.." I muttered under my breath.

-"So, how does the ring work?" Erin asked, which meant she probably heard me.

-"It looks really cool!" Aeneas said, then he poked it for a second, which kind of irritated me.

-"Uh well.. I guess if I take it off it turns into the sword." I answered, not really certain if that was true.

-"Does it have a name?" Erin continued. I really didn't like holding up long conversations, and knowing that we could get killed by random harpies or whatever at any time didn't help. In fact, I was starting to think the driver was some sort of snake-man, listening silently while he drove us to an alley to eat us. At this thought, I looked at the window for a second, but didn't see any snakes or alleys nearby.

-"Well, should it have one?" I replied.

-"I don't know, do you like Shadowfang? Or Blackfang? or.."

-"What? Stupidfang? Stygianironfang?" I said sarcastically, prompting Aeneas to laugh. Erin smiled. -"My best friend named his sword Thorn or.." she didn't complete the sentence, and her expression turned more serious and grim, while we passed by an empty street, which I found weird.

-"Anything wrong?" I asked her. Not that I cared, just wanted to know.

She sighed. -"It's James. I'm still worried about him going missing. I told you, he was my best friend and we were super close, and he just disappeared."

-"We could Iris-message Chiron and see if they found him and the other campers." I suggested.

-"Iris Message?" Aeneas asked. He was a roman, so of course he had no idea what that was. -"Yeah, I'll explain to you later."

The taxi stopped in front of a train station, the Amtrak.

-"This is the train station," said the driver, "If you have tickets, the next train to Virginia should be departing in about 30 minutes."

I worried for a second, since we didn't have tickets, but I realized something..

-"Thanks sir!" Aeneas said, and we got off. Erin paid the driver some mortal money and he drove away in less than a second.

The night was cold, but I shrugged it off. Today was June 22, which meant we had until the 27th to slay the Python in Delphi, though I wondered how we could get there in such short time. Oh and if we fail, Rachel and the Apollo campers die. Average demigod drama.

-"This is the Amtrak." said Erin as if it wasn't obvious enough with the huge sign. We walked into the building station. I could see some mortals waiting for their train, and some other clerks selling the tickets, plus there was a neat vending machine on the corner. Or at least it looked neat when you were starving to death, like me. Aeneas went up to one of the clerks, who promptly smiled at him and kept talking.

Erin yawned, which for some reason made me yawn too. -"Are you tired?" she asked. Besides being hungry, I was already drowsy. I looked at the huge, ornate clock on the wall, and my dyslexia didn't act up this time. It was 11:12 p.m. or an hour past bedtime in Camp Half-Blood. Erin listened to some music with her magic headphones, or at least I thought they were magic; they weren't plugged to anything, and she was always wearing them even while fighting monsters. I didn't feel like asking though, she would probably ignore me.

-"Good news guys!" called Aeneas as he went back to us. "One of the managers is an ex-legionnaire of the Twelfth Fulminata, meaning he will take us to Virginia. Our train leaves at 11:30, so we should be going." said the son of Venus. Probably the most resourceful member in our lame team.

-"That's great! Good job." Erin said while hugging him. I figured I should check out the vending machine before it's too late.

-"I'll just go get some snacks before we go." I said, while my stomach rumbled. I took out some mortal money and walked up to the vending machine, staring at the doritos, snickers, and more foods trapped in the glass. I put the money in the machine, and pressed some buttons to take the doritos. I gasped for a second, as my ring slipped off, turning into 2 feet of pure black stygian iron and splitting it along with a few gummy bears open. I looked at it eye-widened, picked up my sword, along with some doritos and ran back. -"Nobody saw anything." I muttered. And of course there were kids stealing from the used-to-be machine.

I joined my friends dragging my sword through the floor, as I couldn't will it back to ring form. I figured the mortals saw something like a balloon sword or maybe a hot dog, because they were giving me pretty weird looks.

-"Bryan, put that away!" Erin whispered into my ear, "Monsters could see you!"

Though Aeneas was staring in awe at my black sword, which actually blended in perfectly with the darkness of the night.

-"Uh, don't you think I would've already if I could?" I whispered back, "The stupid sword won't go back to ring form!"

-"Then tell your stupid sword to shrink back or do some Underworld magic, I don't know, just put it away!" we kept whispering, which made the mortals give us even stranger looks.

As we argued, a large, long and most surprisingly, GOLDEN train came in through the railways. It had the Camp Jupiter S.P.Q.R logo with the laurels on it, which seemed to go on forever, or maybe it was just insanely long. We all stared at the train, which the mortals didn't notice either. Chilling wind blew in our faces, causing Erin's long, straight hair to ruffle in her face. The train stopped, and we all went towards it. Having no real luggage except our backpacks was very convenient. I saw a train guy standing in front of it, who clearly hadn't been there a second ago. He called to us, -"Amtrak, New York City to Virginia, boarding now!"

Aeneas talked to him, saying some things in Latin which I didn't understand. The guy nodded at every word, and opened the door.

-"Come on, guys." said Aeneas and so we followed him. "This train is made out of Imperial Gold, so monsters can't attack it without getting disintegrated." he explained. I looked around at the train, which was an impressive work, by both Greeks and Romans it seems. The tables and windows were lined with Celestial Bronze, with some CHB logos scattered around. Most of it was wood, and there was a train cabin for pretty much anything you needed, from food, massages, a relaxation room and even an Iris-Messaging station.

-"Isn't Imperial Gold toxic to demigods though?" Erin asked.

-"Yeah, so try not to touch it unless you want an allergy, or death." he replied happily.

It was a 7 hour trip, so we settled in our rooms to sleep. I was with Aeneas and Erin had her own room and bed. I went to her room to see how she was doing before we went to sleep. I knocked the door.

-"Come in." she said through it, and I opened it. She was changed in her old Camp Half-Blood pajamas which had suns and other Apollo-like things. Her brown eyes gleamed with excitement.

-"Yeah, just to check if you're okay."

-"Oh..yeah, I'm just a bit worried. About you know..James, my cabinmates, Rachel, and many other things." she answered. Since our ride in the taxi, she still had this serious and grim expression which was unlike her.

-"Were you really good friends with James?"

She scowled. -"Yeah, we were best friends since we knew each other. He even gave me this." she said, pointing at her magic headphones.

-"Are they magic?"

-"Yeah, they were normal when he gave me them, but my dad enchanted them with the 9 muses. So it plays anything I want, whenever I want, and never runs out of battery." she explained.

-"Wow..amazing.." I said, wondering if my dad would ever give me something like that. But I remembered he gave me this sword that split in half a vending machine, that would take my soul if I touched it, and that I couldn't turn into a ring until much later.

-"But yeah, I miss James badly..he reminds me of my old mortal family until I went to Camp." she said.

-"Your family?" I asked. This conversation was getting way too long though. I didn't want us to be the next Percabeth.

-"Yeah..I don't like talking about that."

At this moment, I didn't want to push her anymore, so I just gave her the good night and went back to my room, where Aeneas was already asleep. My pajamas weren't different from Nico's, black with skeletal designs. My bed was very comfy, so I found sleep easy, which meant-you guessed it, nightmares.

So, this nightmare was different. I found myself in a small room, with several guitars, pianos, violins and other instruments hanging around, though there was no one to check them out. I was more or less a ghost, my hands and legs were misty white making it a tad weird to move. I floated around, until I found a woman at the counter, checking out some magazines on musical instruments. Her black hair was in a fishtail, she had polished, yellow nails and tanned skin. Her eyes were brown, and she had a sly, mischievous smile. Then there was a little girl running around, with straight black hair, the same tanned skin, brown eyes and smile. I quickly realized who this little girl was..

-"Erin! Come here, we're closing!" called the woman. The little girl came to her in the counter, though she barely reached it's height.

-"Mom, the instruments are saying mean things to me."

-"Oh dear," she said, putting her polished nails in her daughter's face, caressing it, "You must be hearing things. We're going back home, so turn off the lights."

Little Erin didn't look convinced, but she obliged and turned off the small shop's lights. They both walked through the glass door to the paved street. It was very late in the night. I had no idea which state they were in, if they were in the U.S at all. The streets were empty, not a single car, pedestrian or taxi. Both mother and child walked through the street, with Erin happily trailing up ahead.

-"Erin, no!" she shouted, though Erin didn't listen. Time seemed to slow down to a freezing, like that time when my father Hades talked to me. A voice echoed in the streets, as if the Earth itself was talking:

-"I've found you..Daughter of Pluto.." said the voice. Even without ever hearing the voice, I could know it was Gaea. The Earth talking? It's just too obvious.

-"Mom! The street is talking to me!" voiced Erin angrily, though she didn't notice what was happening around her. On the other side of the street, there was a huge truck driving recklessly, probably a drunken driver. Erin's mom kept calling to her to come back, but Gaea's voice seemed to distract her.

-"Erin! Come back!" she kept saying, but the truck was about to hit the little girl. I balled my smoky fist, the anger welling up inside me. It couldn't be that she mistook her for Hazel Levesque and tried to kill her as a little girl, so she wouldn't be stopped later. Time turned back to normal, and Gaea's presence vanished. Erin noticed the truck about to hit her, the fear intense in her bright, brown eyes. Then her mother pushed her out of the way, and the truck hit her instead. A painful scream echoed in the streets, and Erin kept saying, "No!" though it was too late. Even in the dream, I could feel Erin's mother on her way to the Underworld. The dream shifted again, and I woke up with a start.


	7. Chapter 7

**Okay so the previous chapters have been a bit boring so I added some action and slight mystery to this one, enjoy :) -Kaerneif**

As always, I woke up in the middle of the night, sweat trickling down my face like crazy. I noticed my bedsheets were all over the place so I must've been moving a lot during that dream..

I felt like breaking up into tears for Erin right now. I mean, really? Gaea thought she was someone else so she tried to murder her with a pickup truck? What the heck was wrong with society? And then they wonder why pollution exists..

Anyways, I was completely restless right now. I climbed down the ladder to pick up my fallen bedsheets. My ring nearly slipped down, giving me a mini heart attack, considering what had happened with that vending machine in New York I didn't want the ring to go sword form and kill Aeneas. I saw the son of Venus calmly snoring, his worry lines gone, giving him the look of a baby. No worries, no need to kill a demon snake to save camp, no need to find missing campers..the list could go on forever. I quickly picked up my bedsheets, climbed back up and tried to sleep.

Eventually, we arrived to Virginia. After showering ourselves and changing clothes, I went to the Iris-messaging room to contact Chiron. Erin's hair was still messy, so she stayed in the bathroom "fixing it" while Aeneas and I went to the I.M room. It was a small cabin, with a small, Imperial gold Cupid fountain spouting a jet of water, while the light on the, also Imperial gold windows passed right through it, making a small rainbow. It was the first time I've actually used an Iris message, and romans like Aeneas didn't really use this method of communication. I knew what to do, because luckily I had paid attention to class that day. I flipped a golden drachma into the rainbow, then prayed to Iris, goddes of the rainbow.

-"O, Iris goddes of the rainbow, accept my offering!" I prayed. The drachma shimmered into gold and vanished. Aeneas stared at it in awe and astonishment. "Camp Half-Blood." I finished, and the rainbow shifted, showing us Chiron playing a weird board game with some satyrs and Mr. D, who instantly fell back on his chair as he saw us.

-"Agh! Always at the worst moments.." he chided angrily, prompting Chiron to laugh, though the satyrs tried to keep it in nervously.

-"Chiron!" I called, and the centaur looked at us.

-"Ah, Bryan. I was expecting this call from you. Well, how has it been in your quest?" he calmly asked, as if he had all the time in the world. Aeneas shifted around uncomfortably. I was sure the poor kid missed Camp Jupiter and his family.

-"Uh..both vampires and gorgons have tried to kill us, but other than that it's been quite..normal." I replied. At hearing this Chiron's face remained the same. Maybe living for two millenia has made nothing surprise him. I didn't tell him about the meeting with my father, thinking this wasn't relevant to the quest.

-"Impressive. Where's Erin though?" he asked, and I explained to him the whole hair messed up story. Mr. D got up and glared at me angrily, his eyes turning into two balls of purple fire.

-"Well, it's Mr. Rodriguez then. I hope the god Eurus is in a good mood when you find him. He's..quite volatile, like all the wind gods." he said.

-"Ah yes, taming the east wind will be your next task if you are to find the earth-serpent. If you manage to convince him, he will take you across the Atlantic and to Delphi, where the Python awaits you." Chiron explained.

-"Where can I find this wind god, then?" I asked. The image was starting to fade, probably because I was running out of time.

-"That, I don't know, Bryan. It's up to you to locate him. But it won't be hard, you see.." Chiron said. "The wind gods aren't really hard to find. They usually have wind spirits, the anemoi thuellai, to help them. If you find one of those and tame it, you'll get an audience to see Eurus."

 _Taming a wind spirit?_ I thought. _That's more the job of a son of Zeus, not a son of Hades who can't even talk to the dead._ Heck, I probably can't even summon a rat skeleton if I wanted to.

Before I could answer, the image shimmered and vanished. -"Deposit another drachma to continue the call." the fountain said, though it was enough information for me.

-"You know, I can just charmspeak the wind spirits to take us to the east wind, don't you think?" Aeneas commented.

-"Yeah, that's my plan to get them. Maybe, we can even convince the east wind himself to help us out." I added. Then, the door slid open and Erin came in. My eyes widened as I saw her wearing a sunlight-yellow blouse, her usual headphones, denim jeans and sneakers.

-"Well, what did they say?" she asked. I explained everything to her and we picked up our backpacks and got off the Imperial Gold Amtrak. Aeneas thanked the train guy with some denarii and we arrived at the Amtrak station in Alexandria, Virginia. I admired a few antique neighborhoods, some boutiques and restaurants completely old-styled. It was barely midday, and the weather was very calm, even if the so-called east wind lived here. Taxi's, cars and buses alike passed by the old-styled streets while couples and adults had their lunch breaks at the cafe's. We all stopped by a small bench outside the Amtrak station. Erin had grabbed a city map for tourists, though I wasn't sure if mortals would list "Palace of Eurus" as a tourist go-to place.

-"We are here." she said, pointing to a small spot in the middle of nowhere. Or that was just my dyslexia messing around with me.

-"Ooh, maybe he's in the mall right there." Aeneas pointed at another random spot. Seriously, were these guys demigods too? Why weren't they dyslexic then?

-"No..that's not even a mall Aeneas, that's Chesapeake bay!" Erin replied. Okay, nevermind the dyslexia. They kept arguing on where Chesapeake bay and other places were actually in for quite a while. Finally I couldn't take it anymore.

-"Why don't we just ask people where he is?" I blurted out angrily. Then I realized how stupid that had sounded.

-"Okay then, let's do that!" Erin said and she called for a random man on the street. He was a pale middle-aged adult with short, black hair, executive clothes and a brown briefcase. He totally didn't wonder what three middle-school kids were doing sitting in a bench outside a train station.

-"Yes, young lady?" he said with a smile. His teeth were bright white, reflecting the sunlight straight into my eyes. I had to rub them and then cover them to avoid getting blind.

-"Erin, stranger danger!" I muttered, though she ignored me. The man had sky-blue eyes sparking with electricity, that looked similar to Jason Grace's.

-"Do you know where to find the east wind?" she asked. I felt the need to slap her in the face because of the stupid question.

-"Of course I do!" he answered happily, which surprised me even more. Aeneas looked at me completely eye-wide, which must have been my expression also. "Ah...you must be our special guests! Another demigod has advised us of your arriving here, so we were on the lookout.."

-"Okay..demigod? Our? Special guests? You have 5 seconds to tell me who the heck you are before your soul goes straight to Tartarus." I demanded boldly, though the words seemed to come out on their own. The man laughed demonically, then let open his briefcase. A blast of wind sent all three of us and the bench back into the grass.

-"You should respect your elders, Mr. Rodriguez." the creepy man said. Why does everybody that attacks us seem to know my name? I wondered.

The man's executive clothes were ripped apart into wind, turning him into a swirl of dark vapor with smoky gray angel wings, his crooked smirk and sparking blue eyes crackling with madness.

-"You're an...an Anemoi!" I stuttered, my index finger playing around with my black ring.

-"Just call him Ventus." Aeneas said, his Imperial gold gladius already out. Erin had also drawn her bow, and was ready to shoot the storm spirit to Tartarus-ness in a second.

-"Yeah, whatever. Ventus." I replied, and slipped of the black ring, which shifted into two feet of wicked Stygian Iron, which seemed to draw in the light surrounding us.

-"You're very bold to fight me, son of Hades. Only a child of Zeus or Jupiter would be able to take me on, you're seriously no match-" he started but was interrupted by a well-timed slash of my sword to his left wing. He simply lept back.

"Alright then, you asked for it, child of the Underworld." he said and snapped his dark smoke fingers, which logically made no sense but so didn't most of the things in this world.

On the clear sky, lightning crackled down to the grass, instantly setting it on fire. Erin fired some arrows which seemed to phase through the Ventus. The lightning had hit Aeneas and instantly knocked him out.

-"Aeneas!" I shouted, but the Ventus blurred in front of me, his limbs crackling with arcs of static electricity. I slashed, but it again went through him. Pain shot up in my stomach as he zapped me violently, making me drop my sword. I gasped, and as he approached to finish me off, Erin shot a a volley of light into his face, blinding him as he cursed in ancient greek.

-"Fight him, I'll attend Aeneas!" Erin ordered and went over to the fallen son of Venus. I picked up my sword while the Ventus rubbed his eyes, and closed my eyes, concentrating on the ground. I had a crazy idea, but it was my only option if normal attacks didn't work. I opened my eyes, remembering something else Nico had taught me.

-"Serve me." I ordered. Nothing happened for the first few seconds, and the ventus was about to zap me to death. Then suddenly, the ground under the storm spirit cracked open and skeletal hands and claws latched onto it, making him wail in horror and pain.

I stabbed it with my Stygian blade, and this time it did work. It started absorbing his essence, the electricity and the wind fading away.

-"Please, no! I'll do anything you want!" he pleaded, and I obliged. If he tried anything, the skeletal hands would draw him under, never to come back again.

-"Take us to the Palace of Eurus. Don't do anything and you'll remain alive." I demanded, and he nodded meekly. The skeletal hands let go, and the storm spirit shifted form, turning into a dark smokey horse that crackled with electricity. He neighed, which made the hairs of my back stand up from the static. I turned back to Erin, who picked Aeneas up. Still unconscious, he had a nasty burn on his left shoulder.

-"He will be fine, he just needs some ambrosia and nectar. So..are we riding that thing? How do you know we won't fall off?" she questioned.

-"Ahh..trust me. We won't." I replied. We all got on the ventus horse, and no, we did not fall off. And no, the electricity didn't zap us either. Imagine riding a Rapidash, just without the fire.

-"Okay, just tell him to be slow-" she started but was quickly interrupted by the ventus horse galloping across the street, as if about to crash in to a car. Erin started screaming like crazy so high it shattered my eardrums. "Bryan it's too fast! Tell it to slow down!" she kept screaming, but the ventus just keep going faster. The wind horse grew back his angel wings and took off flight. "AHHHHHHH IT'S TOO FAST!" Erin kept screaming.

-"This is awesome!" I shouted, which could be heard across the entire city of Alexandria. I grabbed onto his vaporous mane which surprisingly enough was solid. Erin held Aeneas' unconscious body while screaming. We went so high that the cars and trucks looked like toys, though I had no idea where we were going. The horse flew above the clouds, so high that I couldn't see the city anymore.

-"Seriously, where even are we?" Erin asked, now calm. An airplane casually passed by and I saw a kid no more than two years old looking at us weirdly. I waved to him and he waved back, then we sailed past the plane.

-"Uh..no idea." I replied. The clouds seemed to part as we flew, revealing a huge castle that seemed to float in the air. The castle had a small entrance with a bunch of black spots in the clouds. I looked again, and realized the black spots were actually other venti in horse form, flying around and doing tricks in the air. Harpies and wind "ghosts" or so they seemed to be, passed by like a bustling city.

-"They must be Auras, the wind nymphs." Erin remarked as if reading my thoughts.

-"Oh..like Mellie." I remembered. Mellie was an aura at Camp Half-Blood married to a satyr. I deducted these wind ghosts must be her cousins or some relative, so they should be of help. The horse ventus neighed again, as his wings folded back in and he stopped, in the middle of the clouds in front of the palace. It didn't have any stairs or a bridge leading into it, only clouds and more clouds.

-"Sorry, but I'm not getting off." Erin said nervously. An aura passed through my body, making me shiver.

-"I think we can step on this. Like the horse's mane." I guessed, then looked at Erin. "Ladies first."

She sighed, then cautiously put down her left foot, and didn't slip or anything. She put her other foot down and seemed to float on the clouds.

-"Oh, it works! Your turn."

To be honest, I was completely scared about falling, but knowing she was standing on the clouds, I quickly got off. Sure enough, I didn't fall through the clouds to a horrible death. Before I even thanked the ventus, it dissolved into the air.

-"Great, before we do anything, we need to heal up Aeneas." I said. Erin got her backpack out, took out a Ziploc bag of ambrosia and force-fed it to Aeneas. Quickly, the son of Venus opened his eyes.

-"Ugh..Bryan?" he asked groggily. I gave him my hand and he got up, hugging me. It felt really weird, but I let him do that since he just got hit by lightning and that surely hurt.

"Where are-" he began asking, then started freaking out as he noticed he was standing in the air. "AHHHHH, WE'RE GOING TO FALL! CALL THE 911 OR MAYDAY OR NASA OR, OR.. OR.." then Erin calmed him down.

-"Okay, look. We're in the Palace of Eurus in the air, and we need to ask the East Wind if he can hitch us a ride to Delphi so we can get this stupid quest done and my siblings don't die. That's the summary, any questions?" Erin explained, completely irritated. "Fine then, let's go and get this done with."

And so we entered the palace.


	8. Chapter 8

**This one's a LOT shorter than other chapters, since I haven't had time because school started again (ugh -.-), but next one will be longer. -Kaerneif**

As soon as we entered, I noticed the palace wasn't made of a divine material, like Celestial Bronze or Imperial Gold, rather it was made with a silver material that seemed to glitter permanently. Winds blew from all directions, coming from nowhere in particular, which must have been Tartarus for Erin because of her long hair. The palace had several closed doors, and a super long hallway that lead up to a larger door. The ceiling was so high I couldn't even see it, and of course, there was no floor. Instead, we were walking on solid clouds. There were many auras floating around, going through the doors like ghosts, but doing nothing in particular. Also, none of the venti outside came inside the palace. Eventually, we were in front of the large, Celestial Bronze door.

-"Okay, what are we doing then?" asked Aeneas. His chocolate hair was a mess, though not as much as Erin's, who looked like she had gone through a hurricane, which she technically had.

-"First of all," I began, "You'll be doing the talking. Try using your charmspeak on the East Wind so you can convince him easier." Aeneas looked doubtful of it working, but nodded anyways.

-"Erin, you and I will stay back and try not to mess anything up. If Aeneas gets attacked, we'll just try to fight them back..though I'm not sure we can fight them in their home territory." Erin nodded.

We pushed the doors, which were as light as the clouds, and came in to the weirdest throne room in the world: it had no ceiling or roof, so we could see the sky and clouds easily. The walls were sure enough, the strange glittering silver metal, with windows of celestial bronze. Even stranger, there were autumn trees with falling orange leaves growing..on the clouds. In front of us, there was a glittering, silvery throne with a man seated in it, as if awaiting our arrival. He was an elderly man with a cloudy white beard, eyes that sparkled with electricity, salt and pepper hair and he held an inverted vase. He wore a white greek chiton and his electric gaze was completely serious. He opened his mouth and spoke in a completely anticlimatic and VERY weird, high-pitched anime girl voice:

-"Hello, are you housekeeping?" he asked and smiled from ear to ear. We all exchanged looks of "What the hell?" I pushed Aeneas slightly up ahead.

-"Hey..um, Lord Eurus," he began nervously. Erin and I facepalmed. "We're looking for-" he was interrupted by Eurus.

-"ARE YOU THE CLEANING SERVICE OR NOT?" he boomed. I rolled my eyes. _Why always the weirdos?_

-"Cleaning service, uh..lord?" Aeneas stuttered.

-"Yes.." he replied dryly. "Cleaning service for the venti..do you have two of these?" he asked while pointing to his eyeballs. "They are called EYES, in case you didn't see the mass of black wind horses outside."

Aeneas put up his happiest fake smile and kept talking. -"Oh, of course we have, my Lord! We're the cleaning service you ordered, of course we are!" he said excitedly. Erin also smiled to make it seem less fake.

-"Oh, too bad. I didn't order any cleaning service in the first place." he added with another creepy smile. We facepalmed again.

-"Uh..what did you say, my Lord?"

-"Yes, do you have two of these?" he pointed to his ears this time. "You're all liars. Why would I take you to the Ancient Lands if you can't say the truth?"

-"Hold on." I put in, Erin elbowed me slightly and whispered into my ear very loudly. "What are you doing?"

I ignored her and stepped forward. "With due respect, my Lord," I began, "I believe this conversation will take us nowhere." Everyone looked at me.

-"Excuse you?" he hissed. The electricity in his eyes seemed more intense and focused. "You seriously expected ME to take you to the other side of the world for no apparent reason for free? I hope you have a good offer, one that gives me enough reason not to let you fall through the clouds.

Aeneas took the word again. -"Is there anything you desire, Lord Eurus? Maybe..something you've lost? Something you really want?"

Eurus opened his mouth, then closed it again, as if picking carefully which words to say. -"Actually..there IS something I've lost.."

-"Well, what is it, my Lord?" Erin joined in.

-"It's something very important to me..my inverted vase..yes.." Eurus scratched his chin.

-"Inverted vase?" Erin asked.

-"Do you even Greek Mythology, little girl? Just because on my wikipedia page it says NOTHING about it, doesn't mean it's not my symbol of power." Eurus waved his hand. Erin looked at me nervously.

-"We'll get it back, Lord Eurus." I said proudly. Then I realized what I had just said. "Wait..Las Vegas? We'll lose too much time just going there and back!"

Eurus laughed, which seemed more like wind blowing instead of laughter. -"I'll take care of that, son of Hades. You WILL fetch my inverted vase back, in the city of Las Vegas. But there's something important there for you. Something that'll change the fate of your quest, depending on your choices. Something you might regret in the future..something..." he didn't finish the last "something", instead he seemingly fell asleep on his throne, snoring.

-"What. Did. You. Just. DO?" Erin came to me, completely angered.

-"We had NO choice! Do you want this crazy tsundere god to "teach" us how to fly? Because I do not!" I replied, equally angered.

-"It's Las Vegas! We only have four days before it's all over! Ugh.." she sighed loudly. Aeneas kept turning his head to both of us, as if it was an intense tennis match of insults for about five minutes.

-"Oh, by the way. I never fell asleep, I just wanted to see your reactions to it." Eurus chuckled. We all facepalmed, again.

-"We need a favor, my Lord." I said.

-"Yes, you need transport to Las Vegas. I said that I'll take care of it, right? I can't help you coming back though. You'll have to figure out on your own. Do you accept this mini-quest?" he asked. I looked at Aeneas, who silently nodded. Erin had calmed down a bit, but still looked uncomfortable with the quest.

-"Yes, we do." I replied. Eurus gave us another demented, ear-to-ear grin and happily said, "Then it is settled! You three demigods shall head to Las Vegas and retrieve the inverted vase. You'll have no problem spotting it when you get there." he clapped his hands, and a group of aurae magically appeared above the autumn tree.

"Prepare my personal ventus at once for Las Vegas." he ordered. The aurae nodded meekly and quickly dissipated in the wind.

"Now." he turned to us, completely serious. "I said, there is something important for you there, son of Hades. Do you know anything about Las Vegas?"

-"Uh..there are casinos?" I answered nervously.

-"That's the residence of the Roman Goddess, Fortuna. She will be of great aid, or great despair to your quest."

 _Great, more uncertainty for the collection,_ I thought.

-"Depart at once. I don't want to see you around here without my inverted vase." he ordered again. Then, my heart nearly skipped a beat as we all fell through the cloud floor.

-"AHHHHHHHHHH" we all screamed. My heart must have been at least a million miles per hour at this moment. Did he kill us off? I couldn't even talk at this point. Before I even noticed, a venti in horse form had flown directly under us, letting us ride it's mane. It was different from the previous one, instead it was cloud-white with electric blue mane.

-"Why was I expecting this?" Erin added. I felt like passing out at this point.

-"Well, road to Las Vegas it is."


	9. Chapter 9

**As promised, Chapter 9 is here and it's longer than usual! :) Enjoy. -Kaerneif**

The electric smell of ozone filled my nostrils the entire flight. We rode the special ventus Eurus let us borrow, whom Aeneas nicknamed "Sparks". I complained that it was a very clichéd name, and Erin argued that my opinion didn't matter, (she was still angry at me) and we started bickering. Pretty much ANYTHING right now could spark (ba dum tss) an argument between us. We remained pretty high in the air, just slightly above the clouds, which made me wonder how Sparks knew where we were. It was a warm, summer afternoon, in wherever in the U.S we were right now.

-"Are we there yet?" Aeneas asked, breaking the awkward silence. I felt as if I had just experienced a déjà vu.

-"Don't you think we'd know if we were already there?" I replied irritated.

-"Why do you always answer like that? If you have a problem, you can just leave the quest. Oh wait, we can't. We're in the middle of nowhere!" Erin complained. I rolled my eyes and sighed.

-"It's not my fault you guys volunteered for this anyways.." I finished. Erin opened her mouth as if to argue, but then stopped. Aeneas remained silent. And yet, another awkward silence, even though I had no problem with that. I kept thinking on what Eurus told me, about "something" important in Las Vegas. As always, there has to be a riddle or something like that to make the life of heroes annoying. I'm not sure if that rule applies to me though, because I haven't done anything heroic in particular.

-"I'm hungry.." Aeneas commented. I noticed he was always the one to start conversations between us, as if to relieve the tension or something like that.

-"I have some doritos if you want them.." I said, and pulled out the bag of doritos I had stolen from the train station. He gladly took them and quickly opened the bag. Erin didn't even steal a glance. She kept looking forward to the cloudy sky we traversed, her arms crossed. What could she be thinking on anyways? I gently took a dorito and ate it, the taste of cheese and colourant melting in my mouth as I crunched it.

-"You know.." Erin spoke up without even turning around. "I think I understand why we're like this."

-"Like what?" I replied. Even though she didn't specify, I was sure she was talking to me.

-"I mean..I'm the daughter of the god of healing and light, you're the son of the god of death, and you can control darkness. We're complete opposites."

-"Um.."

-"Yeah..explains why we can't seem to agree on anything now." she finished half-heartedly.

-"Wait." Aeneas said.

-"Hmm?"

-There's something bothering you, Erin." he began, "You're not angry because we'll lose time in Las Vegas. There's something else isn't there?"

I started thinking. Being in the darkness all the time and observing people actually helps. How Aeneas noticed this is beyond me, but maybe it had to do something with being the son of Venus.

-"Actually, there is.." Erin added. "It's..the whole point of coming with you guys to this quest."

-"Well, what is it then?" I asked. I think I had just crossed the "touchy subject line", but whatever.

-"It's him."

Aeneas chuckled. -"Hah..I knew it." and he kept eating his doritos calmly.

-"Um..can someone explain me, who's "him"?" I asked, a bit irritated being left out.

-"C'mon Bryan, it's clear as water!" Aeneas said. I rolled my eyes, twirling the black ring in my finger. It greatly bothered me not knowing what they meant.

-"It's James, Bryan!" Erin squealed.

"Oh.." is all I managed to say. It all made sense now. Erin could've developed a crush on James, and I mean a really HUGE crush, so I figured that she actually wanted to see him again if we somehow managed to find him, and the other missing campers. Maybe her siblings and Rachel also mattered, as Erin never seemed a selfish person to me.

I looked down at the clouds. Right now we were flying in my uncle Zeus' territory, and he didn't smack us out of the sky or something. I thanked him in my mind for not doing that. This time, no one broke the awkward silence, except for Aeneas munching on the doritos. It seemed like forever, but eventually, Sparks stopped flying. He, (or she?) whinnied, and calmly started dropping down.

-"Seems like we're here." I said. The other ones nodded. I looked down, admiring the view of Las Vegas, Nevada. The sky was tainted a caramel orange color, signaling the coming evening. Most of the neon signs were already turned on, including the classic "Welcome to Las Vegas, Nevada!" sign I usually saw in pictures.

-"Why is no one moving?" Erin commented.

Sure enough, there were many cars, and I mean a lot of them. But..none of them were moving, like not at all. They were frozen in place, and the signs were actually flickering a lot, as if they had been turned on days ago, and never turned off.

I twitched for a second, feeling a buzzing in the back of my head.

-"Monsters. Of course." I said, as we finally landed in front of the "Welcome!" neon sign.

-"What kind of monsters?" Aeneas asked. Then his expression turned to surprise, his jaw dropping and eyes widening. "Wait, what day is it?!"

-"It should be June 24th today." Erin said calmly.

-"Oh no..this is bad.." Aeneas sighed, walking from side to side nervously. "This is VERY bad..Remember what Eurus told us to look for?"

-"The goddess Fortuna in Las Vegas. Does it have anything to do with one of the busiest cities in the world turned into a ghost town?" I said.

-"Today is June 24th, the feast of Fortuna. It's a roman tradition to hold a feast for the goddess of luck, Fortuna. It determines whether the camp will have good or bad luck this year."

-"So?" Erin said.

-"Normally she's a very kind goddess, but today, because of the massive numbers of sacrifices..well, you REALLY don't want to meet her."

Sparks whinnied again, and then dissolved into the wind. Which by the way was the only wind that blew, because even the wind itself didn't seem to move.

-"Why am I not surprised?" I said sarcastically.

-"Guys, we need to focus, we're losing time." Erin said, drawing our attention. She was still wearing the bronze headphones she always did. "Let's ask some people if they know where Fortuna is, and get this over with already. Remember, we don't have any way to get back to Eurus and bring him the inverted vase, at least not yet.."

-"Oh, because random mortals will know where Fortuna is, makes total sense." I said, again sarcastically.

-"It worked last time, Death Boy." she teased and smirked. Then both Aeneas and her rushed to the nearest car.

-"Don't call me Death Boy." I rolled my eyes and followed them.

We ran in the paved streets, going for a very fancy-looking red Porsche Cayenne 2016, with all windows down so it was easy to see who was in. There was a black-haired man, probably in his thirties with a business suit and an also very fancy-looking, golden Rolex. He was the only one in the car. The weirdest thing of all, is that he was asleep. Not even snoring or anything, just asleep, his mouth hung open.

-"He's asleep." Aeneas said.

-"Oh really? I didn't notice." I growled back. Erin went to another car, this time black, that I didn't manage to recognize, probably thanks to my dyslexia.

-"This is a whole family, and they are asleep too." she hollered back. We kept checking out all the cars, and everybody in them was asleep, children, adults and elderly alike.

-"Okay, this is seriously creeping me out." Erin commented, "Is there anything you can do, Death Boy?"

I scowled at the nickname, but answered anyways. -"I have an idea, actually."

We went back to the Porsche, and I held my hand out to the asleep man.

-"Woah, what are you doing there?" Erin chuckled.

-"It's something Nico told me. I can seem to control dreams and such to a certain degree, though not as much as a child of Hypnos or something could. So maybe.." I trailed off. At first nothing happened, but then..

-"Agh!" I yelped.

An intense migraine bombarded my head, so much I held my hand back to my temples and fell to my knees. I figured Aeneas and Erin were trying to help me, but I felt completely disconnected from reality, the sounds of their worried screams were washed away by static sounds instead. I closed my eyes. Everything shifted to darkness.

A ray of light pierced the darkness, as I opened my eyes again, my body warming up to the taste of pomegranate juice in my mouth.

-"More.." is all I managed to say.

-"Easy, Death Boy. More of this and you'll burn up." Erin said, and put her bag of ambrosia away. Aeneas was holding me up in the street, until I recovered my strength and got up.

-"What happened?" I asked.

-"Well, you did some of your Underworld magic and.." Aeneas began, but was interrupted by Erin.

-"You were VERY close to.." she stopped, "you know, never opening your eyes again."

An empty hole opened up in my chest. I had been close to going with my dad, and not in a good way. If you know what I mean.

-"How much..?"

-"Like 5 minutes. Don't ever do that again, I was very worried!" Erin said. I went back to the Porsche, ignoring her warnings.

-"What are you going to do?" they both questioned me.

-"It's all right, I can control it this time." I said. They both looked worried, but I was not. I felt compelled to hold my hand out to the sleeping man again, and so I did. Again, nothing happened for like ten seconds. The man opened his eyes like a pair of lanterns. He had bright brown, bloodshot eyes and very dilated pupils.

-"It worked!" I said, a light smile playing across my lips. The man smirked, which made my smile vanish. He then closed his eyes, and something knocked me back.

-"Owe!" I groaned, rubbing the back of my head.

-"Bryan, dodge!" I heard Aeneas shout, and I instinctively rolled to the left, dodging something I couldn't recognize. As I gained my footing, I noticed it was a mass of..black. A pitch-black mass of something, that kept moving around erratically, until a pair of bat wings sprouted from it. It was the size of my head, but still looked very threatening.

-"What is that?! WHY DO WE ALWAYS GET ATTACKED BY BUSINESSMEN?!" Erin yelled. I couldn't manage but to chuckle at that true statement.

Demonic, baby laughter echoed in the area, as the mass of black finally sprouted a (you guessed it!), demonic baby head. It was a pitch-black, red-eyed baby head with no hair, on top of a rippling sphere of black mass with demon bat wings.

-"It's an.." I felt the word in the tip of my tongue. As always, I hadn't studied this monster, but my Underworld sense let me know what it was. "An Oneiros!"

-"A what?" Aeneas shouted. Duh, Romans didn't know about Greek monsters.

-"I am flattered. The son of Hades knows what we are." the baby commented, with a creepy, deep demonic voice. "I am Phobetor, one of Hypnos' thousand sons, the Oneiroi."

-"Let me guess, you were sent by someone to kill us or something like that..?" I replied boldly.

-"Not really, Bryan Rodríguez. We're here for two reasons, actually."

-"And those are..?"

-"We've been summoned by two demigods, who needed help to get back to your petty, Camp Half-Blood. But we found something a lot more fun to do.." he bared his pointy, ebony teeth, but was quickly disintegrated into dust by well-timed flash of light courtesy of Erin. Black dust sprinkled on the street, until silence reigned the city again.

-"Uh..I got carried away."

-"No problem." I replied. The sleeping man quickly woke up, groaning.

-"What..?" he put his hand on his temple. Aeneas sprinted towards the man, and muttered something to his ear. The man quickly fell asleep again, but this time with a smile on his face.

-"Charmspeak..?" I guessed.

-"We can't have witnesses. Phobetor said there were a thousand sons, plus the other two demigods we have to find. On top of that, we need to find Fortuna before it's too late.."

We kept walking slowly through the street. -"Hey Bryan..can't you like tell them to leave so we can find the goddess or something?" Erin said.

-"It doesn't work like that."

-"Then, are we supposed to find ALL of them? They could be literally anywhere!"

I thought about that for a second. -"Actually..They are probably the ones keeping everyone asleep. So they must be like inside people's heads or something, like Phobetor was." I commented. I analyzed some possibilities of what we should do, but nothing came to mind.

-"Why don't you Iris Message Chiron for help?" Aeneas suggested.

-"Yeah, if we can find a rainbow that is." Erin replied.

My Underworld sense kicked in again, and I could feel another of the Oneiroi nearby. Scratch that. I could feel MANY of them homing in.

-"Guys, watch out. They are near." I readied my black ring, as two feet of Stygian Iron materialized on my right hand. Aeneas had drawn his gladius, and Erin her bow, slowly loading an arrow. A swift line of black blurred across my eyes, and on instinct I swung my sword. Instead of black dust, it's essence was drained by my weapon.

-"Haha, not this time." I chuckled.

Aeneas slowly advanced on his direction, quickly slicing everything to dust with his Imperial Gold gladius.

-"Watch out!" Erin shouted from behind. I felt something cold phase through my legs, as I couldn't move them anymore. Aeneas also stopped.

-"I can't move my legs!" I yelped.

A larger Oneiros appeared in front of me, a cocky smirk on his face.

-"Phantasos, that's the name." he said, and then laughed demonicly like they all did. Erin shot an arrow, while also slicing the other Oneiroi assaulting her with her bronze knife.

"Your legs are literally asleep, honey. You can't move them until I say so." he taunted, putting his cold, black fingers on my chin.

A volley of light came in from Erin's direction towards Phantasos, but he simply vanished. Then he reappeared.

"I'm not like them. You can't really hurt a dream like that, can you? Or should I say.." his smile widened, his face now inches away from mine, "A nightmare..? Heeheehee.." he vanished again.

-"Fight like a man!" Erin shouted angrily. Though she was free from Phantasos, the hundreds of waves of Oneiroi will eventually overwhelm her. Aeneas and I couldn't even move, and Phantasos was nowhere to be seen. I focused, thinking on what I should do.

-"Free us!" Aeneas said with a fake smile on his face. The words seemed to remain in my head, and I noticed he was using charmspeak. One of the smaller Oneiroi floated up to him, as if motioning to free him.

-"Silly boy, charmspeak doesn't work with us!" he taunted, but was quickly disintegrated by Aeneas' gladius. Even though he couldn't move his legs, he could move his arms perfectly fine. An idea popped in my head. I held my hand out, and chanted in Ancient Greek.

-"Serve me." I felt a chill down my spine, and the ground cracked, bones floating up from the earth and assembling, forming a one legged skeleton warrior.

-"Lame." I commented, and the warrior lept to one of the Oneiroi with his only leg, though he crumbled down to a heap of bones mid-leap.

Erin was now held down by the black-winged demon babies, as Phantasos materialized again.

-"Our employer will be very pleased with this." he said coldly.

-"Who's your employer?" I asked, trying to buy us some time so something could come and save us.

-"Our employer doesn't wish to be named. We were summoned by two demigods, but someone else offered a better payment for an easier job."

-"How much?" _Maybe he could accept the bag of drachmas?_

-"Have you even looked around? It's an entire city of," he sticked his white tongue out, licking his bottom lip, "DELICIOUS mortal dreams." All the Oneiroi cheered.

-"What if I told you that we can pay you better?"

-"We don't accept drachmas, kid." Phantasos replied. I rolled my eyes.

-"Well, sweet dreams." he finished, and slowly, floated towards me, pointing his finger to my forehead. I felt the primal urge tugging in the back of my head, telling me to sleep and never wake up again, but I resisted. My eyelids felt like bricks that weighed a million tons, and my body started to feel numb.

-"Nope." I said, but it was the other way around. I felt a chill down my spine, as I finally closed my eyes. I could hear a washed out, "Stop!" as my eyes popped open again.

Phantasos growled in anger, turning around to face something I couldn't see. A flash of light came from Erin's side, homing in on Phantasos' back, burning it white.

-"Agh!" he shrieked, as I felt my arms and legs regain their strength. I quickly lept towards him, running him through with my Stygian Iron sword, absorbing his essence completely until there was nothing. Aeneas too, was fighting like a demon. He was a little kid, but he whirled that gladius around like it was a feather, quickly slicing those unlucky enough to be near it, to dust. The remaining ones kept Erin held down, and I could see from her dazed expression that she was tired. Using her light powers always wore her out faster than usual, and this was already pushing it. It took us a long while, but eventually the entire mass of Oneiroi was a heap of black dust. None of the civilians seemed to wake up though.

-"We did it!" Erin happily said, jumping around with happiness along with Aeneas. That is until she nearly passed out, so we had to hold her up and feed her ambrosia. The demon babies had bruised us badly, our clothes now tattered, but we managed to defeat them. It was dusk right now, but I couldn't manage but feel worried.

-"Guys. There's another one remaining." I said, massaging my right temple.

-"What..?" both of them said.

-"In the myth, there are a thousand Oneiroi, but there are three main ones. Phobetor, Phantasos, and Morpheus. Nobody else has woken up so far, so..Morpheus must be still out there."

-"Wait.." Aeneas began, "Did you notice the Oneiroi also stopped attacking us for a second?"

-"Yeah! I heard something in my mind..saying "Stop!" or something like that." she imitated the voice of a little girl.

-"I have a feeling, that Morpheus must be the leader of the pack."

-"They're not wolves, Bryan." Erin chided.

-"You get the idea!" I said irritated. "We have to find him before it's too late. And this time, we'll ambush him. He will tell us where Fortuna is." I explained, a devilish smile playing across my lips.

-"Alright, Death Boy, where to?"

Suddenly, my Underworld sense ceased. I heared two muffled screams in my mind, "Help!", coming from a few streets away.

-"Follow me, fast!" I said, and sprinted.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10 already, wow. This one's written in Erin's POV. Next chapter should be very interesting though.. -Kaerneif**

-"Over here!" Bryan kept saying while we ran. We passed by a small park with palm trees on one side, and on the other like ten million casinos, illuminated by flickering neon lights. My vision was starting to get blurry from running, specially after fighting the demon babies for so long. Aeneas ran behind Bryan, and I ran directly behind him. Bryan turned a left to a dark alley, which kept getting darker and longer as we ran.

-"Right here." Bryan said, and stopped. We all stopped behind him. It was pitch-black, but I knew Bryan had some sort of night vision so it didn't matter to him.

-"I got it." I said, then focused on my palm. I felt a warm tug in my stomach, and a sphere of light formed in hand. Somehow, the darkness didn't seem to part or anything.

Then the light died out. "Huh?" I felt even more tired and dizzy.

-"What happened?" Aeneas asked.

I rubbed my right temple. -"I don't know..my light just disappeared."

-"Help!" called a voice from the alley. Without hesitation, we all ran for it, though I still couldn't see anything. We stopped at the end of it, and some light seemed to illuminate this part. There were a few garbage bags and some trash cans lying on the floor.

-"Where are you?" Bryan asked the trash can.

-"I'm pretty sure they can't talk." I chuckled. Then the trash can moved, a metallic sound clanging on the floor. Both males lept in and nearly decapitated something that came out of it.

-"AH!" It yelped in surprise. My vision focused, and I saw two little girls, about Aeneas' age, curling up together, both with bright blonde hair, probably twins. I realized that they weren't two girls, rather one of them was a boy, his hair falling over his eyes hiding his freckled face. He was wearing a tattered, orange Camp Half-Blood shirt, blue shorts and black sneakers. The girl's hair was a lot longer and in her back, revealing beautiful, lavender eyes. She wore the same shirt, shorts and pink sneakers. They both had the face of newborn babies, completely innocent and harmless, though their lavender eyes reflected fear.

-"Don't get near us." the girl said boldly. The boy stood behind her, trembling with fear.

-"P-p-please don't hurt us!" he stuttered. Then I saw tears dripping off his face. He fixed his hair so it wasn't covering his eyes.

-"It's alright.." Bryan comforted them, slowly walking up to the little kids. He seriously could be a little carebear when he wasn't acting like Han Solo.

-"Uh guys.." Aeneas began.

-"I wasn't talking to you! Are you blind?!" the girl yelled. For some reason, I felt the urge to turn around, and so I did. My eyes widened as I saw what the girl meant. The darkness shifted, and focused in one spot, forming a tall man, nearly doubling Bryan in size, wearing a black hood and robes. The hood didn't reveal his face, but somehow two blood red spheres that I figured were his eyes, stood out of it. He cautiously took the hood off, which didn't do much as whenever I looked at him, his face seemed to change like a mirage.

-"You must be the "help" my siblings were asking for." Morpheus said, a light smile forming in his face. His voice was just like the other Oneiroi, just that it seemed to echo in my mind whenever he spoke.

-"Can I stab him now?" Aeneas asked, his gladius ready to impale the god.

-"Wait..Aeneas, not yet. Siblings you said?" Bryan questioned Morpheus.

-"Those twins right there, they are my siblings. The ones who summoned us here, it was them."

-"They are the children of Hypnos?" I asked, then turned to the twins. They were hugging each other, their fearful eyes reflecting the little light that pierced the dark alley. Would Morpheus be capable of harming these little children?

-"Okay, I'll do the usual thing villains do at these points. Which is explaining you mortals what happened here." Morpheus cleared his throat.

-"Of course." Aeneas rolled his eyes.

-"Well, we Oneiroi were minding our own business in the dreams of mortals. Giving children nightmares, and such.." he began, "when my two brothers, Phantasos and Phobetor, which by the way you killed.." he stopped when he said that.

-"Uh, sorry." Bryan said. I laughed a little.

-"They were summoned to this city by my other siblings, those right there," he pointed with his blurry hand to the twins, "And were asked for help to get back to your camp. Which also hasn't built my cabin yet.."

-"And then..?" I said.

-"They considered the idea while walking across the city..when two demigods offered us the delicious dreams of mortals in this city, in exchange for bringing them something."

-"And let me guess. That something happens to be the twins right here, right?" Bryan asked. Morpheus laughed.

-"Hahaha..you couldn't be anymore wrong, son of Hades. That "something" is you. Or rather something you have. Why do you think that even with a thousand of us, we hadn't captured the twins yet?"

A lightbulb turned on in my head. Everything pieced in perfectly now. -"It was a trap." Aeneas said. "You wanted us to come here looking for the twins, so you could trap us and.."

-"That's right." Morpheus confirmed.

-"Wait, so you let the other Oneiroi die just so the plan would work out?" Bryan asked. Morpheus nodded. "You're a monster."

-"Well technically, I AM a god, so you can't really kill me like you did with my unimportant siblings. I'm interested to see how you're planning to fight me." he cockily said, then waved his hand. A thick, black longsword, that glittered like stars, materialized in it. Probably not a Stygian sword like Bryan's, but being a god, you never know what he might pull out.

"Do you want to sleep forever?" he taunted. We all turned to Bryan.

-"Bryan, that's a god..how are we supposed to fight him?" Aeneas asked. The twins remained silent, both trembling with fear of what Morpheus might do.

Bryan sighed loudly and rolled his eyes. -"Why am I the leader of this quest, again?", and he readied Shadowfang. I had nicknamed it like that in my headcanon, even though Bryan didn't like the name.

-"Sweet dreams." Morpheus said. I felt my legs tremble with fear, but I knew my Father wouldn't let me down this time. I imagined the intensity of the sun, the chariot that my dad rode across the skies during days. I felt a warm feeling in my stomach, warmer than anything I'd done so far, as a flash of hot, searing light blinded Morpheus before he could do anything.

-"Agh..not again.." he complained, while Bryan and Aeneas charged in, slashing at the taller god furiously. "Hah, just kidding." he laughed, then my brain couldn't process what just happened. All the sounds seemed to die out, as I saw a certain black blade coming through Bryan's back, no blood seeming to come out. He had just gotten stabbed.

-"Bryan!" Aeneas and I called hopelessly. Bryan fell back on the cold alley floor, his body not moving, yet still not dripping with blood. His eyes were closed and his face a pained expression.

Filled with rage, I quickly nocked an arrow, shooting it at Morpheus. He caught it between his fingers and snapped it in half. Aeneas was slashing relentlessly at the god, who kept parrying all of his attacks with ease. Then he grabbed his sword arm, and threw the little demigod back to the trash cans with a loud thunk. I had charged at the tall god, my bronze knife already drawn.

-"What makes you think you can beat me, little girl?" Morpheus taunted. I didn't answer, instead I channeled all of my rage into a quick, vengeful thrust into his robes. I ducked under his glittering longsword, as I pulled out the knife, tainted with golden ichor from the stab.

-"Agh...how?" the god questioned. He motioned his sword arm towards my abdomen and I knew I was done this time. His sword nearly pierced me, when suddenly, one of the twins, specifically the boy, took the sword's thrust for me.

-"What?!" both Morpheus and I asked. The kid looked completely unscathed, even though he had just gotten stabbed by a sword. He cautiously grabbed the sword by the blade, then pulled it out. Not even a SINGLE wound. The girl lept at Morpheus, and put her hands in his face, blinding him.

"A curse upon you, my siblings..!" he yelled, but he looked more annoyed than actually hurt. Aeneas and Bryan were still knocked out, and Morpheus' wounds still dripped with ichor. I quickly stabbed Morpheus again, this time in his sword arm, making him drop the strange weapon. He shrieked in rage, and then snapped his fingers. He blasted everything around him out, including the twins.

-"How dare you..mortals.." he panted. It seemed like my previous stab had done the trick, though I needed to finish the job. Somehow, his robes seemed to block my light attacks, but if I focused on one spot..

"You're all a nuisance for me. Just a little game. I could've ended this already if I wanted to." I thought of something clever and taunty to say and sound heroic, then replied.

-"It was your mistake to not have ended it from the beginning, Lord Morpheus." I said with a smirk. Then focused on my palm, the intensity of the sun. I channeled all of my remaining rage, how he had maybe KILLED my two best friends and two innocent kids, besides betraying his own kind..With a shout, an intense flash of light seared the alley, blinding everyone except me, but I had focused the blast into one spot. That's right, the stab wound I inflicted on him earlier.

-"AGH!" he shrieked with intense pain. That REALLY must have hurt him, and I knew he wasn't kidding. The blade vanished into a puddle of darkness, and Morpheus' pitch-black robes were scorched white. He fell back to the alley floor and I rushed, taking out two arrows from my quiver and pinning him down by jabbing the arrowheads through his sleeves into the floor. The twins kept rubbing their eyes, probably still blind from my intense attack. My vision kept getting blurry, and I fell to my knees, unable to move.

-"On..my..bag.." I panted, pointing to my bag. The twins seemingly understood what I meant, and rushed to my backpack, taking out the nectar canteen and pouring it on my mouth. The warm taste quickly dissolved as I felt my strength coming back, and quickly got up, coughing.

-"..Thank you.." I managed to say. I remembered Bryan and Aeneas, and my heart sank. Bryan was still unconscious, though no blood or even a wound from the sword was visible. Then I remembered how the boy had survived the stab completely unscathed, but it was no time for questions. I took the canteen from the girl and rushed to the trash cans, looking around for Aeneas. I found his body lying unconscious, his glowing gladius on the floor, and his left elbow..was it always bent that way?

-"Oh no.." I said. The twins attended Bryan, feeding him ambrosia even though he didn't wake up. My heart kept racing a million, when I poured the nectar on Aeneas' lips. He opened his eyes, and groaned painfully.

-"Ugh.." he groaned, then rubbed his eyes. He screamed in pain when he moved his left arm. "AH!"

-"Careful! I don't want you to move that arm for a while, okay?" I said, searching my backpack for bandages or first aids.

-"That's my sword arm though, how am I supposed to fight?"

-"Woah is that your sword?" asked the girl. Come to think of it, I never asked them their names.

-"Yeah, it's made out of- AH!" Aeneas shrieked, as I bent his arm on the other side, remembering the teachings Will had given me back at Camp. I rolled back his sleeve, poured some nectar on the bandage, then wrapped it around his arm. "Thanks for warning me." he spat. I laughed.

-"I wanted to see your reaction, haha." I replied. Aeneas rolled his eyes. The boy twin had been poking Bryan with a stick even though he didn't wake up. I rushed towards him, crouching on his side to check out the wound. There was nothing. I put my hand on his cheeks, they were cold. Same with his arms and throat.

-"He's asleep." said the boy.

-"What?" I asked. "Unconscious, you mean?"

-"No, he's asleep. I can feel it." he replied, putting his hand on Bryan's forehead. "That sword..it doesn't harm you directly, it sends you to sleep forever." he fixed his long, blond hair again.

I thought about that for a second. -"So..why didn't it send you to sleep?"

The girl approached us from behind, holding Aeneas' gladius with both hands. -"I guess, it's because we're child of Hypnos.."

-"So we must be immune to it." the boy finished the sentence.

-"Asleep forever..?" I questioned. Aeneas came in, still unable to move his arm.

-"I have an idea.." he said, a smile on his face. The same fake smile he puts when he uses charmspeak. "We're going to "question" the god of dreams." The way he said "question" made me feel a bit uncomfortable. Don't misunderstand me, I love Aeneas but charmspeak sometimes seems a little..invasive.

-"Go ahead, son of Venus. Oh, also, what are your names?" I asked the twins.

-"I'm Destiny." said the boy. "I'm Gustavo." said the girl. They exchanged looks. "Actually, it's the other way around." they both said at the same time. I laughed.

-"Alright. We'll take you back to Camp soon, don't worry."

The twins nodded, and I patted both of them on the head. Then I looked at Morpheus. It seemed ironic that the god of dreams had fallen asleep. I was mistaken though, because he woke up the instant Aeneas got in front of him.

-"So..Lord Morpheus." Aeneas began, "We'll ask you some questions, and you have to answer with the truth and only the truth." he said, the words lingering in my head. I felt completely unable to lie, but quickly shook it off. That charmspeak was definitely strong. Morpheus seemed to be resisting it though.

-"What happened to our friend?" he asked. Morpheus started twitching, as if trying to resist it but in a few seconds gave up.

-"My dreamsword..it has the power to send anyone it cuts to eternal dreams.." he answered dryly, gritting his teeth.

-"And how can you cure eternal dreams?"

-"I can easily do that, but I'm very weak right now..maybe if you gave me some of your ambrosia.."

-"Don't even think about that." I replied near-instantly. Morpheus remained silent.

-"Tell us another way." Aeneas demanded.

-"The easiest way for you right now..must be speaking with Fortuna. The one who holds your sought after inverted vase."

-"Where is Fortuna, then?"

-"You'll find her enjoying the sacrifices in the Alpha and Omega hotel in this city. I'll warn you that someone far more dangerous than the Oneiroi or even myself resides there though."

Aeneas and I exchanged looks. Everything pointed to the Alpha and Omega hotel. The feast, the inverted vase, and of course, the next danger we must face.

-"We'll spare you, considering how we can't kill you..for now." Aeneas said. "Begone, and never dare to cross our paths again. Erin?"

Morpheus nodded meekly as he said this. I took the arrows off, and Morpheus motioned his hand in a circle.

-"I wish you the worst of luck, young demigods." he said, then sank into his own shadow. The lights in the alley turned on after this.

-"Woah, it's late already." Aeneas said while looking at the sky. The city noises resumed, probably because everybody had woken up now.

-"Um..Miss?" asked the little girl. Sorry, Destiny.

-"Call me Erin. Yes, Destiny?"

-"What will you do now?"

I exchanged looks with Aeneas again. I noticed his color changing eyes had gotten a lot more confident and mature. He certainly was not that scared kid at capture the flag anymore.

-"We have no choice but to go to the Alpha and Omega hotel. We'll take the twins and Bryan there and see if we can contact Chiron to pick them up."

-"Sounds like a plan, kid." I replied with a grin. "You're not fighting for a while though, doctor's orders."

-"But Erin..you can't be our only fighter if we're to face something worse in the hotel. We'll get overwhelmed."

-"Hey, we can fight too!" exclaimed Destiny. Her brother was still examining Bryan.

-"Oh..sure." I said, trying to not sound sarcastic. Wow, I was starting to sound like Bryan now, ugh..

-"We can't lose time. The feast ends at midnight." said Gustavo. He seemed like the silent, sensitive one of the twins, while Destiny seemed like the brave, outgoing one.

-"The boy has spoken, let's go." Aeneas said.

-"Hey, I'm eleven already!" he complained.

-"I'm eleven too, haha." Aeneas laughed and pushed him. Gustavo pushed him back. They were the same age, but Aeneas was a lot taller than him.

Destiny sighed. She had the look most girls have at one point in their life. The "ugh, boys.." look. I laughed a little.

-"I'll carry Bryan, Aeneas get a taxi." I said, and clapped my hands.

-"At once." then he rushed through the alley, quickly stopping a cab with his charmspeak and fake smile.

I approached to the son of Hades, and with help of the twins got him on my shoulders. For being such a thin guy, he was very heavy. I carried him out of the alley into the taxi while the twins carried our bags.

-"Where to?" asked the cab driver with a smile, probably an effect from Aeneas' charmspeak.

-"Alpha and Omega hotel." I said. Then he drove across the neon streets and casinos of Nevada. I looked at the sleeping demigod on my legs, thinking.

" _What could he be dreaming of?"_


	11. Chapter 11

**Alright so school has made it difficult for me to find time to write, but I'll try to post another one soon. This one's in Bryan's dream, enjoy. -Kaerneif**

 _My body had been falling down a dark pit for hours, and nothing had happened. My brain replayed the entire event in my mind:I had been stabbed by Morpheus and then everything shifted to black. And then I started falling the dark pit. And I'm getting bored of falling down a dark pit forever._

That's until the darkness changed to a bright, sky blue color, with a few spots of white cotton here and there. And I realized I was in the sky. _"Am I dead?"_ I thought. Near instantly, my body plummeted down the clouds. I screamed my lungs out, but no sound came.

 _"That's it!"_ I thought, because I couldn't talk. " _It's a dream. I can control it."_ I ordered the dreamscape to change, or to wake me up. Nothing happened. For some reason, the ground I was about to crash on seemed so real..

And finally, I hit the ground, face first. I didn't die, but I felt like a million elephants had decided to use me as a dance floor. I screamed from the excruciating pain, but no sound came again. I laid on the ground for around 10 minutes, partly because I was tired, partly because I couldn't move my broken body. I rubbed my eyes lazily, and the pain just..vanished. I noticed I was in a dirty alley, like the one I had been stabbed at in Las Vegas. The only difference was that it was morning. I looked at my arms and legs.

 _"Oh no."_ I thought. _"This can't be happening again.."._ I was again in my ghostly vapor form, like the one I had in Erin's dream. But this was a dream by _Morpheus_ , that same god that stabbed me and sent me to this weird place. Who knows what horrible things I might find here..? I floated out of the alley, and noticed a few flying unicorns, leaving a trail of rainbows as they left. I rubbed my eyes, and they were gone. " _Okay.."_

Then I saw a boy, maybe seven or eight years old, with blond hair and green eyes. He was wearing a tattered, white shirt, some brown, also tattered shorts, and black boots. His arms and legs were badly cut and bruised. I floated up to him, and as usual he didn't notice me.

 _"Last time, it was Erin. Could this be Aeneas from the past?"_ I pondered for a second, then quickly came to the conclusion I was wrong. Aeneas didn't remotely look like this kid at all. Unless some Aphrodite (cough, Venus) magic had to do with this.. I noticed the kid was carrying a brown pouch. Noise echoed from the other side of the street, and an angry, caramel skinned man chased the boy. He kept cursing in portuguese, which I had no idea how I understood. Spanish was a lot like portuguese, but there were some differences.

 _"_ Come back here, you little.." he cursed. The boy kept running, and I decided to follow him, seeing how I had nothing better to do until someone got me out of this dream..

Eventually, the blond boy tripped in the cracked, poorly-paved street of this place, and the man got up to him, picked him up by his shirt with one hand, and snatched the pouch. The boy looked at the man, his green eyes filled with fear.

-"So you like stealing from others, huh?" he asked him. The boy didn't answer. "Answer me.." he cursed, then dropped the boy. He gripped his fist, but didn't do anything. As usual, the dream limited me from doing anything, so I had to float there and watch how the man beat up the little boy. And I mean, BADLY. He kicked him across the street, then punched him right in the stomach, making him cough out blood. " _Stop!"_ I tried yelling.

Finally, he smacked him across the face and the boy began crying. He didn't say a single word in the entire beat up. His face, arms and legs were bleeding. Tears dripped from his wounded eyes down to the floor, while the man casually left, leaving the boy to die. A bald, pale man approached the boy, and held his hand out. The boy looked too pained to take it.

 _"I'm having a long talk with Morpheus after this."_ I thought. Why would he show me this child abuse scene? I held my hand out, then focused on the dream. _"Take me out of here."_ I ordered, and the dreamscape changed. Technically, it DID take me out of there, only to show me something worse.

I was now in a small factory, with several kids from all ages working on those sewing machines you find in sweatshops. Well this was a sweatshop after all. They all had sad faces, the same cut arms as if they got hurt often during labor, and they had something I couldn't make out (thank you, dyslexia) in their arms. I noticed the same kid was there, only about eleven years old now, working on the sewing machine. The same shady-looking pale man opened a door, and all of the kids stood up.

"Alright, rats. You have a small break to eat whatever you can find. Come back in thirty minutes or there will be punishment." he ordered, and all the kids ran out. I floated towards the blond kid as he walked out, going to a secluded space in another alley. He was eating a moldy sandwich. A single tear dripped down his eye, and I noticed his wounds from the earlier beat up had scarred. His clothes were stil tattered and they were like two sizes smaller than what they should've been.

-"Oh, look who's here." said a voice in portuguese. Three kids, with the same tattered clothes and bruises walked up to the blond kid. They all looked pretty average and mean, with the kid in the middle standing about an inch taller. "The sandwich." he demanded, holding his hand out.

The blond kid shook his head. The middle kid snapped his fingers, and the other two boys lept at the blond one, beating him up with their fists while the middle one plucked the sandwich, and began eating it. The dream changed one last time.

This time, the kid was older than me. He was a teenager, about fourten years old. He had a blue shirt, ripped up jeans and black sneakers. His face had this gaze that told you to NOT come near this guy unless you wanted to die. I was floating in front of a fancy-looking casino, though not so much like the Las Vegas ones. He opened the glass door, which was guarded by two guards with black sunglasses and tuxedos. The dream like blurred for a second, and I was spectating a poker match between the boy, and the same pale man I always saw.

-"Let me ask you this question, my boy. When did you get this good at poker?" the man asked with an air of superiority. The boy kept his cold stare.

"You've never talked much, pity. Let's begin."

I remained there, while the old man and the young boy played poker. I didn't really understand this game or it's appeal, but the Stolls were always playing it with whoever was foolish enough to. They were gods at poker, being the sons of Hermes and all. Time flew by in seconds, and the boy had won.

-"Impossible..it's.." the man looked completely astonished. The boy smiled.

-"I beat you." he finally said. It was the first time I'd heard the boy talk. His voice was juvenile and slightly cracked. The old man snapped his fingers. One of the tuxedo guys kicked the boy, making him fall from his chair with a loud thud. He got up, dusting himself off, then pulled out something that caught my eye. It was an Imperial Gold knife, a pugio, I recalled. Those were used by new Legionnaires as a training weapon. But this boy didn't look like a trainee. His fighting style was a lot like Aeneas, meaning he was insanely fast and accurate. This guy wasn't merciful like my friend though. A crimson liquid washed over the cushioned, Casino floor, and the guards didn't move anymore. The boy grinned. I had to cover my eyes, (yes, I'm aware my hands were technically vapor, don't ask how that worked out) but the screams were enough to tell me what had happened.

-"This is for all the kids you've hurt just for money. Greedy rat." he said coldly. More screams. The dreamscape changed. The boy didn't look any older. In fact, he had just gone outside of the casino, and a Roman chariot had crash-landed in front of it. Two demigods and a satyr got off.

-"Halt!" the satyr called with a british accent. The boy didn't budge. The two demigods walked up to him, both wielding Imperial gold weapons. One of them was an also blond boy with electric blue eyes. It didn't take a genius to realize it was Jason Grace, just slightly younger. The girl had long, dark brown hair and these strong eyes that made you want to cower in fear when you saw them.

-"We come from Camp Jupiter, looking for a demigod son of Mercury." Jason said. "If you can see our chariot, then you must be him." The boy remained silent.

-"What's your name?" the girl said. The boy slowly walked up to them, then replied.

-"My name is.." and the dream changed to black. I woke up.


	12. Chapter 12

The taxi kept driving us through the neon-lighted casino's and hotels in Las Vegas, a creepy smile on his face caused by Aeneas' charmspeak ability. Bryan was still in his deep sleep, courtesy of Morpheus, the god of dreams, and his dreamsword. Gustavo was looking at the left window with his calm expression, his elbow pressed against the glass and his hand on his forehead. On the other hand, Destiny was on the right side, Aeneas' gladius propped on her side and helping me hold Bryan still. Aeneas sat on the front with the driver, which no one seemed to care even though he was an eleven year old. His right arm still had my first aids bandage wrapped around it, as he got injuried while fighting the god of dreams. And finally, I sat between the Hypnos twins, with the asleep son of Hades in my lap, my black hair covering my worried expression. Nobody said a word during the trip.

To be honest, I was very worried about this Alpha and Omega hotel we were heading to. Morpheus had warned us that a danger worse than himself awaited us there, and we didn't have any fighters. Aeneas couldn't fight with his sword arm broken, and I couldn't protect the twins while holding off a horde of monsters worse than a god at the same time. And I had to protect Bryan too. At times like this, I wish he could be awake. I mean, for a son of Hades he wasn't the gloomy, depressing emo kid everyone expected him to be. And I bet we all needed a dose of his usual sarcasm that made this horrible quest not be horrible.

-"Alpha and Omega hotel, my Lord." the driver said cheerfully.

-"My Lord?" I asked Aeneas with a light smile.

-"Um..it's a side-effect. I swear." he replied while getting off. He took out some mortal money to pay the driver.

-"Yeah, sure." The twins got off, both helping me carry Bryan out the cab. My eyes widened as I admired the massive, black glass tower that stood upright in front of us. This was the famous Alpha and Omega hotel Morpheus spoke about. Two rows of greek olive trees formed a wide path towards the main entrance. The alpha and omega symbols were the only letters in the hotel's "Welcome" sign, made out of flickering, red and blue neon lights. I had to blink a few times to see it properly. The tower was blurring, Mist weaving in and out of it.

-"Mortals can't get in. There's Mist protecting the hotel." Gustavo commented, fixing his messy blond hair that covered his lavender eyes.

-"I have a bad feeling about this." Aeneas said.

-"Same. But we need to go in-" I said, but was interrupted by Aeneas.

-"Yes, and find Fortuna, we already know, Erin." he said cheerfully. I nodded, and with help of the twins, carried Bryan through the path. I noticed it was made out of the same glittering silver material Eurus' palace had. The black tower remained there peacefully, as if there wasn't a single soul inside. We arrived to a double, black glass door with Imperial Gold handles. Aeneas opened it, and we all went in.

-"It's dark here!" Destiny shouted. And she was right, the lobby was as dark as the Oneiroi. I quickly prepared for the worst, ready to shoot anything that came near us with my bow, but right then..

-"Welcome! Welcome all to the Alpha and Omega Hotel! Envied by the god Hephaestus himself!" said a young red-haired lady, with the body of a supermodel and glowing, obsidian nails. Her eyes were a deep green, like the sea itself. "Our motto is check-in today, checkout never!" she added with an ear-to-ear smile. We all exchanged looks. The lobby floor was black like Bryan's sword, the walls glittering silver and the lobby counter pure Imperial Gold. The alpha and omega letters were sculpted in the walls, flickering like the ones outside the hotel. Potted olive trees adorned the waiting area, a few cushioned sofas and chairs with small, coffee tables on both sides. The room wasn't really huge though.

-"Um..hello?" I said doubtfully. "We're looking for the goddess Fortuna.." and I was interrupted yet again.

-"Fortuna? Oh..you must be Erin Artist, daughter of Apollo!" she said pointing at me. Then she turned to Aeneas. "And Aeneas Kahale, son of Venus.." and finally pointed to the twins. "And the Strauss twins, sired by Hypnos." she twisted her mouth while she said this.

-"And you are?" I said, glaring at the strange lady.

-"Me? Oh..I am the wonderful.." The lady closed her eyes and smiled again. The room turned to black, a spotlight that seemed to come out of nowhere pointed at her. Then a drumroll that also seemed to come out of nowhere. "The marvelous.." the drumroll intensified. "Doris. Nymph daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, the bounty of the sea!" and the drumroll stopped. The spotlight disappeared as the lights turned on again.

-"Oh..kay.." I said, my sight wandering off the nymph.

-"Oh, wonderful and marvelous Doris," Aeneas began, a smile on his face, "Where can we find the goddess Fortuna, in this wonder of art, Alpha and Omega hotel?"

-"You're going to need to check-in first!" she said, motioning to the Imperial Gold counter.

I looked at Aeneas. -"I'll check-in, help the twins hold Bryan." and he came over, holding the son of Hades while I walked up to the counter. I faced Doris, who was still smiling.

-"We're checking in for a single night. Two rooms please." I said determined.

-"Two rooms? At once, daughter of Apollo." she bowed, then waved her hand, a papyrus scroll and a quill materializing out of thin air. "Sign here, please." she pointed to a small line. The scroll was filled with millions of greek letters that made my head spin, but I signed with my name nonetheless.

"Very well, just wait a few minutes right there." she said, and picked up a strange-looking antique phone. I walked back to the other demigods, who had placed Bryan in one of the couches.

-"I got us two rooms. One for the boys, and the other for us."

-"Sounds good. But the Feast ends tonight, Erin." Aeneas pointed out, "We need to find Fortuna, get the cure for Bryan and the inverted vase in just a few hours!"

-"It's alright.." I rolled my eyes towards Doris, who was now looking at our direction with her silly fake smile. "As long as we play their game, we'll find her on time."

-"If you say so.." he said. Destiny had been staring at him the whole time, and Gustavo sat silently in his bubble of thoughts.

Doris clapped, and the elevator that wasn't there minutes ago opened. Another thing to write down in the "weird things that happened in this quest" list, because the Minotaur (THE minotaur) came out of it, with a blue, alpha and omega hotel cap that luggage guys have in hotels and weird-looking red shoes.

-"This is Derek. He will take you to your room." Doris said, and the Minotaur motioned to the elevator. We quickly picked up Bryan, and walked in the elevator nonchalantly.

-"I'll help you with this." Derek the minotaur grunted, and picked up Bryan with a single hand. Nobody said anything about that. "Your rooms are number 3000, and 3001."

The fancy elevator was very large, enough to hold the minotaur and five demigods and still have space for more. It had Imperial Gold in the walls and floor, and only had five buttons, so I had no idea how it could have 3000 rooms and probably more. Derek pressed a single button, that said "Room" in ancient greek. And the elevator didn't seem to move at all. The only thing breaking the awkward silence was the weird elevator music that must've been from The Ventures. I had a good ear for music from working with my mom in a music shop when I was little.

-"We're here." Derek grunted, and the doors opened. We emerged in a large hallway, with an alpha and omega, blue and red rug on the floor to each of the rooms. It ended in another path to the left, a golden bridge to the other side of the hotel. This place was larger than the Labyrinth itself. And of course, it was a million times larger on the inside than it was on the outside. Derek scorted us through a few rooms, slightly before the golden bridge. "Room 3000. Aeneas Kahale, Bryan Rodriguez and Gustavo Strauss."

-"That's ours." Aeneas said, and with a single finger, Derek opened the door. I didn't look at the inside though. Aeneas, Gustavo and Derek, who was still carrying Bryan with a single hand, all went in. Then Derek came out and closed the door.

-"Room 3001." Derek said, and we went to the other room. This place was more a suite than a regular room though. It had an indoor, pristine water pool, two canopy beds, a kitchen with pretty much anything you could imagine, two bathrooms, a flatscreen and a see-through black glass of the entire city. -"Doris says you have an hour to get ready before the event begins."

-"Event?" I asked right away.

-"The Feast of Fortuna. I can't say anything else." Derek said stoically, and went out. I looked at Destiny. She seriously needed a change of clothes and fixing her hair before this mysterious Feast of Fortuna. And so did I.

-"Well, let's get ready then." I told the daughter of Hypnos. She faced me with her lavender eyes.

-"Say..Erin.." she began, "what can you tell me about Aeneas?"

-"What do you mean?"

-"Well.." her sight wandered off to the roof, "he's..um.." she sounded nervous. "Well I think he's.." and she blushed. I think I knew what was coming. "I think he's cute, okay? Please don't tell my brother or he will tease me forever."

I seriously had to laugh. -"Aeneas? Well, he's a nice kid. Do you want me to set you guys up?"

-"No, just..um.." her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red. "Well yes, you can set us up later.."

-"Haha, I sure will." I replied. "We need to get ready." Destiny nodded. I quickly went to the bathroom. The toilet was Imperial Gold, the jacuzzi Celestial Bronze and the shower glittering silver. I showered, which felt incredibly relaxing. I felt completely refreshed, like I hadn't in so many days, since the quest began. All of my previous cuts and bruises seemed to close up, as if the water had a healing property of sorts. The towels were probably enchanted, because they were extremely soft and never got wet. I went to the closet, surprised of what I found there. It was a dress, which I suppose I had to wear for the event. It was a bright yellow high neck dress with sunflowers at the bottom and short sleeves. I didn't really like the dress, but there was no denying how beautiful it was. There was also some makeup which I didn't touch and black heels. Okay, no one was going to make me wear those heels. I hated heels with all my soul, since I couldn't walk with them without falling once.

-"Erin, come out!" Destiny called. I got worried and came out quickly. Apparently she had no trouble putting her dress and heels on, which made he little girl nearly as tall as I was. Her high neck, short sleeved magenta dress made her look like a princess without a tiara. She had straightened her blond hair somehow, and her newborn baby face made her look even more beautiful.

-"It's Gustavo. He says Bryan woke up."

My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. "Then..there's no cure?" I asked.

-"We don't know. I'll go out and check them, okay?" she said with her sweet, little girl voice.

-"Alright." I smiled as she walked out. I put on the bane of my soul, (the heels) and opened the door, walking out. I had left my backpack with the nectar and ambrosia back in the room, though I didn't know I had made a terrible mistake by doing so.

-"Erin!" Aeneas called. He looked like a stylish gentle-kid with his black tuxedo and shoes. His short, chocolate hair was perfect and his arm seemed to be fine thanks to the healing water. I could see Destiny stealing glances every few seconds.

Gustavo followed him, who also had a black tuxedo, though his blond hair was still a mess. And finally, the son of Hades.

-"I thought I'd never see you wear something like that." I chuckled as I saw him. He had fixed his messy black hair and his face looked completely refreshed. Destiny stood by her twin's side. Bryan spoke up.

-"I had a weird dream..what happened?"

We all laughed. But my face turned serious soon after. -"Tell us about it later, Death Boy," he glared at the nickname, "we're going to the "event" now."

The twins, the son of Venus, the son of Hades and I all nodded. We all walked to the elevator and I fell thanks to my heels.

-"Don't mind me, just keep walking!" I shouted, and I could hear Aeneas chuckle. Destiny called for the elevator, which soon after opened revealing Derek the minotaur.

-"The feast begins in fifteen minutes. Are you ready for this?" he said with his stoic face.

-"We are." I finally said, and we all walked in. I fell again by the way.


	13. Chapter 13

**Alright, back to Bryan's POV -Kaerneif**

The elevator doors opened.

-"Why is it so dark here?" Erin asked. My enhanced dark vision didn't work for some reason, and this stupid tuxedo was killing me. It was incredibly tight, though I liked the black color of it.

The dark room alit after a few seconds, and the Minotaur everyone called "Derek" vanished into thin air. Before anyone said anything about that last thing, a spotlight illuminated the other side of the room, revealing a 30 feet tall closed red curtain on an equally wide wooden floor.

-"The Grand Event begins, ladies and monsters, gods and goddesses!" a loud, feminine voice greeted and in seconds, clapping noises drowned down the ambient music. I felt a cold, skeletal hand grasping my back, sending a chill down my spine, and I couldn't feel my friends' presence anymore.

Everything went white, as I realized it was the intense light burning my eyes. The light cleared, and my heart raced a million miles an hour. I was in the stage, behind the now-open red curtain. Countless round tables filled the massive room, with pretty much every kind of monster you could imagine, sitting in them. There were a few minor gods I couldn't manage to recognize, all using tuxedo's and dresses to match the occasion. I was standing behind a Stygian Iron black, neon counter like those you see in Family Feud or shows like that. The counter had the two-pronged bident, the symbol of Hades. I noticed my friends were calmly sitting on the back of the room, being attended by some wind spirits.

-"First, our special guest of the night.." began the same feminine voice which I managed to recognize. It was a red-haired woman in front of the stage, with a very fancy, sea-green dress and perfect makeup.

"Oh, I should introduce myself first, hee hee hee.."

I rolled my eyes, and noticed I was the only counter in the stage. The other half of it was darkened, only faint silhouettes of the other's being seen.

"I'm the marvelous bounty of the sea..the wonderful and spectacular, nymph Doris!" she voiced, and the clapping resumed. I had to admit, being in front of this crowd made me nervous, but I felt leaving the stage to a mass of bloodthirsty monsters wouldn't be a better idea. Sweat trickled down my forehead as the clapping died down.

-"As I was saying before.." Doris strutted across the stage, "Our guest for the night, representing Camp Half-Blood..Bryan Rodriguez!"

Nobody cheered. Only a faint clapping could be heard in the background, probably coming from the demigod's table.

-"I can feel your excitement, monsters of the night. Minor gods. Satyrs and spirits of all kinds." Doris said, with a tingle of sarcasm in her tone. "Next up, our second contestant..representing the monsters.."

A drumroll sound reverberated in the lounge. Lights flashed above the second counter, the next one to my right, revealing a plump woman wearing an XL or something like that black dress that glittered like a starfield. Her brown hair was braided and she licked her lips as the monster crowd cheered and clapped, licking her bottom lip with her forked tongue.

-"Echidna. Mother of all Monsters!" Doris shouted. The cheering intensified tenfold. Echidna waved her hand, as if salutating all other monsters, minor gods, etc.. and allowed Doris to continue the introductions.

-"Next up, representing the gods.."

As I predicted, another drumroll. And the lights above the third counter to Echidna's right flashed on, illuminating a young woman wearing a white chiton, adorned with green flowers and golden braids. Her hair was loose and short, and her face was just like the twins': that of a newborn baby.

-"Hebe. Goddess of Youth." Doris said with disdain. Some clapping in the background. The monsters probably weren't pleased with this. Hebe shot back a glare at Doris and she followed with the last dark silhouette.

-"And finally..representing.." Doris paused, as if reading from a teleprompter, "Nothing?"

Everybody exchanged looks. Doris looked as confused as Hebe and Echidna did.

-"Well, without further ado, representing "nothing", the demigod..Skye! Or so it says right here..I didn't write the script, okay?" Doris said and the final counter alighted. My eyes widened as I saw a blond demigod, with short spiky hair and green eyes, wearing a tuxedo just like I did. He was tall and muscular, but the scariest thing of all was his expression. He looked like a serial killer, as if there wasn't a trace of mercy in his being.

-"Hello." he said coldly. His voice was deep but juvenile. I wondered what this whole "nothing" meant, and if he was a demigod..maybe he was one of the missing ones?

-"Very well. Let's begin at once. Our event hostess and sponsor will be conducting the game. Let's all give a loud applause for the goddess of luck, Fortuna!" Doris finally said, and vanished in a cloud of green smoke. Cheers and clapping later, the smoke cleared and Fortuna emerged. She was just like Hebe, but her face was a lot more regal and mature, with a light smile playing across her lips. She held the Cornucopia, the Horn of Plenty, with her left hand, and believe me or not, she had a WHEEL stuck on her back. The wheel was ink-black though, and looked more like a hologram than anything.

-"Ladies..monsters..demigods..other gods.." Fortuna said. She seemed to radiate luck just by being near her presence. "I'd like to formally welcome you, to the Feast of Me."

Nobody clapped this time. Fortuna resumed. "Our contestants will be participating in a game some mortals call "Wheel of Fortune"..but I like to call it, "Wheel of Fun" better." she said with a sadistic smile. She clapped her hands, and the wheel in her back made a snapping sound, expanding and alighting with rainbow colors. It was a wide and round wheel, with several words in Ancient Greek and Latin that I barely managed to understand. "Tartarus. Death. Incineration." It read, along with countless other tortures that I decided not to imagine.

-"What do we get if we win?" I asked. Everyone, including Fortuna herself, turned to me.

-"Oh..the son of Hades.." she began, I rolled my eyes. "Why, isn't it THIS what you're looking for?" and the glittering, silver inverted vase materialized in her hand. I nodded grimly.

-"Then I'll explain the rules at once!" she smiled. "Every contestant has a turn. Each turn, you'll spin the wheel and get a different "fortune", as you can see here." She gingerly pointed to the one saying "Death".

-"That's a nice fortune, isn't it?" I said sarcastically. Fortuna sneered and kept talking.

"You have two passes, in case you don't want your fortune. The last creature standing wins. Pretty simple, isn't it?"

No one replied.

-"Then, we shall begin now." And some mild clapping broke the silence. "Son of Hades. Spin the wheel, darling."

Without a care in the world, I walked up to the wheel, and spun it. Seeing so many colors spin at the same time nearly made my eyes explode (thanks, dyslexia) so I had to cover them for a few seconds.

-"Ooh, a nice fortune.." Fortuna muttered in my ear. I looked up and the wheel had stopped in "Being dropped from Olympus naked".

-"Of course it is. I pass." I said nonchalantly.

-"A pass it is!" Fortuna cheered, and moved on to Echidna, who looked like she was about to decapitate the godess of luck any second.

-"Mother of all Monsters." she greeted her. Echidna didn't greet her back, and slithered on the floor towards the wheel, spinning it with her manicured, reptilian hand. Rainbow colors, and it finally stopped in "Incineration".

-"Pass." she hissed.

-"Another pass!" Fortuna shouted. All monsters clapped and she moved on to Hebe, goddess of youth.

-"Hebe.." they both shaked hands. Hebe walked up to the wheel of Fortune and spun it.

-"Nectar." Fortuna said, which were the words in the wheel right now. A cup of probably nectar appeared in Hebe's hand. "Enjoy!" Fortuna said.

-"Why does she get a good fortune and I get a horrible one?" I said, though I was ignored.

-"And finally, Skye..isn't that a girl's name?" Fortuna said. Skye had the same, serial killer look and evaded the question by spinning the wheel.

-"Tartarus."

-"Pass." he said coldly.

And so, went another round of the game. I got "Mauling by Cyclopes", Echidna got "Eternal Damnation in the pits of Tartarus", Hebe got ambrosia and Skye got "The Tub". If you don't know what "The Tub" means, look it up.

-"Alright, the third round begins.." Fortuna said sadistically. Knowing everyone but Hebe had run out of passes didn't make it any more comforting.

-"Son of Hades." she called. I spun the wheel, a stoic expression static in my face. My heart was skipping beats though, I just wanted to seem unworried.

"And it's..pass." Fortuna said. The wheel had stopped in "pass". So I took a deep breath and went back to my counter. "Luck is on your side tonight, son of Hades."

-"So it seems, goddess of luck." I said with a tone of malice. Before Fortuna even motioned, Echidna was already spinning the wheel. Exactly ten seconds passed before it stopped in "Impaling".

-"Ooh..you don't seem to have anymore passes, Mother of all Monsters. You'll have to take your fortune."

Echidna grinned, and then shouted in ancient greek something like, "LEAVE NO SURVIVORS!" and all the monsters stood up, going for the stage and Fortuna. I calmly sipped my tea.

-"What a foolish choice." Fortuna hissed back, and in an instant, all cheering was replaced by agonizing wails and screams. All of the monsters excluding Echidna had incredibly painful expressions, probably due to the Celestial Bronze rods sticking out of their body. They all dissolved to dust, and Echidna broke to tears. ALL of the monsters had been killed cold-blood by Fortuna. Even a demigod like myself felt horrified by the carnage.

-"My children!" Echidna wailed. Literally 70% of the room had vanished. "You're the real monster here, not me!" she screamed and lept for the goddess. It wasn't soon until Echidna met the same fate as her children.

Silence reigned the room, as the dust cleared out.

-"Goddess of Youth, it's your turn." Fortuna said as if nothing had happened. I tightened my fists, the rage welling up inside me. I twirled my black ring for a second, but decided to hold it back until later.

Hebe spun the wheel. I was expecting something like "Getting nasty rich" or "being spoonfed caviar" but surprisingly enough, her fortune was "Incineration".

-"I pass." she said happily. Skye moved on to the wheel, and spun it. My eyes widened at the fortune he got.

-"Death. And you have no more passes." Fortuna said. Skye smiled, but this wasn't like Echidna's smile. This guy literally irradiated his killing intent. And this is the son of Hades telling you this. Not even Thanatos could do this.

Skye motioned his hand up. In an instant, the wheel vanished and Fortuna screamed. Ichor dripped down her beautiful dress, and a glittering silver dagger was jutting out of her wound.

-"What's the meaning of this?!" Fortuna snapped, and she chanted in ancient greek, her eyes balls of fire. After she finished chanting, nothing happened.

-"What...?! A thousand curses upon you, demigod! What did you do to me?" Fortuna collapsed to the ground.

-"I'm not Echidna, mind you. This dagger is made out of Royal Silver, dipped in the River Acheron in Tartarus. Enough to instantly kill anything it cuts..I wonder what would happen if it cut an immortal..?" he said. Hebe broke into laughter.

-"Look at her face! Hahahahah.." she kept laughing.

-"You've blown your cover. You can take it off now." Skye said. Hebe's dress changed, and so did her entire form. Mist weaved in and out, revealing a very different girl.

Her hair was long, wavy and brown, with purple color at the tips, matching her manicured nails. She was smaller than Skye, which meant around my height. She was wearing some teared navy jeans, sports shoes and a black shirt, along with a purple jacket.

-"Paige Page, that's the name." she introduced to me. Right now, they were as threatening as Team Rocket would be in real life, but I focused.

-"Who are you two? What do you want here?" I asked. They ignored me, and went to Fortuna, snatching the inverted vase out of her hands.

"I asked you a question." I said, and "Paige" turned to me.

-"You've heard of us enough, already. The Oneiroi? Remember them?"

Nothing came to my mind. At least not right now, because I was focused on taking the inverted vase and my friends and running out of this place.

-"Your blank expression tells me you've forgotten. Foolish Camper.." Paige growled back. I saw my opportunity, and ran for it, my ring materializing into my Stygian Iron sword as I ran, about to take the inverted vase like the flag I had stolen days ago.

-"Not so fast.." and before I knew it, my sword clanged down to the floor, my body pinned down by Skye's weight. "Can I kill him..?" he casually asked Paige. She shrugged, and Skye drew an Imperial Gold dagger, a pugio, I remembered. Only new legionnaires at Camp Jupiter used those.

-"Don't touch Bryan!" I heard a voice yell, and Skye was tackled by Aeneas, his gladius in hand. The son of Venus gave me his hand, and I got up, picking up my sword. Skye glanced back at us. This guy was VERY fast, if I couldn't follow him with my eyes.

-"You must have a death wish, if you want to challenge us to a fight."

-"We only want the inverted vase. If we have to kill you for it, so be it." I replied.

-"Then so be it."


	14. Chapter 14

As expected, Skye attacked first. He lunged at me, pugio in hand, ready to stab me while Paige fled with the inverted vase. The problem is, that this guy was INSANELY fast, so much I couldn't parry his stab or any of his attacks at all.

-"Owe!" I flinched from the pain, blood dripping down from my upper chest. Aeneas tackled Skye, but he simply lept back, cockily fixing his blond hair like in a Pantene commercial.

-"Does it hurt?" he asked bluntly. I simply glared at him. Knowing I couldn't defeat the stronger demigod with my lame sword skills, I decided it was time for the Underworld powers.

-"Aeneas, cover me." I ordered. The son of Venus nodded, and Skye smiled lightly. Fortuna remained on the floor, knocked unconscious by their previous attack. Skye dashed at me, ready to finish me off, but Aeneas got in front of me and thrust his sword out, so Skye had to trail back or risk getting stabbed.

I chanted in Ancient Greek, as I felt the souls of the undead grasping for life underneath my feet, craving to see the light and escape from my father Hades and his monsters just for once. The ground rumbled, cracks forming all around Skye. Skeletal hands crawled out, grabbing his legs and taking the form of skeletons. About 5 of them in total, my best feat so far.

-"What..?" he growled. I was the one to smile this time. Call me a freak, but I also noticed Skye had been blinking more irregularly too.

-"Meet my skeletons." I managed to say, but winced again from my previous wound. Controlling so many skeletons also made me feel dizzy and exhausted, as if I had been running a marathon for days. I glanced at Aeneas.

-"Let's get the other one." He nodded again, and we both ran after Paige and left Skye to fend off my skeletons. We were about to jump off the stage, when a chill down my spine stopped me from doing so. A hissing sound accompanied by a stiff hand on my shoulder, and I knew I was done for.

-"..You killed them?" was all I asked. Aeneas turned around, his eyes widened.

-"They were already dead, kid." Skye said. I felt a sharp pain shoot up in my lower back, the blood rapidly dripping down. I had been stabbed.

-"Ahhh!" I screamed, my vision blurring. All I could see was the merciless killer in front of me. His face was as cold as a glacier, as if he didn't have any remorse on watching me suffer. I knelt, the strength in my body vanishing from the wound. My sword clanged to the floor yet again.

I noticed Aeneas slicing and thrusting at Skye, who casually dodged each of the sword attacks. More blood dripped down my back, as I started coughing. Imperial Gold was poisonous to demigods, even in a small quantity like Skye's pugio. I tried cursing in Ancient Greek, but the words simply faded, my eyes growing weary and tired. Finally, Skye somehow parried Aeneas' slash, and proceeded to stab the smaller demigod too.

-"Stop!" I heard a voice yell with my fading consciousness, and the twins, Destiny and Gustavo grabbed the much taller Skye's legs.

-"Great..more distractions.." Skye sighed, as he seemed more annoyed than actually hurt. But then, the weirdest thing happened. Skye fell backwards on the stage, landing with a thud on the glittering silver floor. The twins stared at him with their lavender eyes, and I knew it was not a coincidence.

-"Sleep!" They both chanted in Ancient Greek, grabbing each of their hands and holding out the other. Aeneas looked as astonished as I did. Destiny quickly took out Erin's Ziploc bag of ambrosia and rushed to my side, putting the square in my mouth.

-"Eat this, hurry." the little girl said. Her male twin remained silent, staring at Skye's body. I ate the ambrosia square, feeling the strength return to my body, and the wounds healing up. I seriously wanted to eat more.

-"You made him sleep?" Aeneas asked. I could see Destiny's cheeks getting slightly reddish..

-"Yeah..we used our powers together.."

-"We need to help Erin." Gustavo added.

-"Erin! Where is she?" I asked right away.

-"She..she said she would hold the other one back." Destiny said.

-"Bryan, we're losing time!" Aeneas exclaimed. Without another word, I motioned my hand, and rushed off the stage, not even looking at the unconscious goddess or the asleep demigod. We all ran through the now-deserted hall, dodging the monster dust and debris that littered the place. And I saw her.

Paige was holding Erin by her throat in one hand, and had the inverted vase in the other. She dropped the daughter of Apollo and coldly kicked her. I gritted my teeth as I saw this, and without a word, I dashed to Paige and put my Stygian Iron sword on her neck.

-"Leave her alone, or I'm slicing your neck." I barked. I wasn't really going to kill her, just wanted to intimidate her so we could get the vase..

Paige sighed loudly, as if this was all just a school play. -"Oh no..I'm so scared.." and raised her hands up like we were the police.

-"Now..give us the inverted vase."

Paige chuckled. -"How feisty. What's the rush, Camper?" I looked at Aeneas, and he instantly knew what to do.

-"Give us the inverted vase." he ordered in charmspeak. I had learned to resist his powerful ability so far, but everytime he used it..it simply was stronger than my will. I felt the urge to snatch the vase from Paige's hand and hand it to the kid.

Paige turned around, and held the inverted vase out to Aeneas, who gladly took it. "Thank you." he said.

-"Alright. Now, you're going to talk." I said. I was aiming to get as much information on what in Tartarus had happened minutes ago during the Wheel of Fortune.

Paige laughed again. But this time, it was a witch-like, evil laughter. My eyes widened, as I noticed the inverted vase was so no more. Mist poured out of it, now a Celestial Bronze thermos inscripted with a compass rose and Ancient Greek letters. Aeneas opened the thermos, seemingly not noticing what it was.

-"Wait!" I shouted, but it was too late. Raging winds blew from the thermos, sending me flying to a wall and hurting me badly. I could see both twins sent to the other wall and lay on the ground, seemingly knocked out cold. And Aeneas was nowhere to be seen. A living hurricane in an enclosed space.. it's not really an experience I would recommend. The wind was so intense it would shred us to pieces if we didn't escape the hall on time.

-"Wow..that's it? I thought the Campers were going to be more of a challenge.." I somehow heard Paige's nonchalant voice. Paige had escaped with the vase. "See ya, Campers." I heard her voice again, pronouncing "campers" like it was a curse.

I laid on the wall, completely defeated and powerless to stop Paige. _-"It's all my fault."_ I thought. Call me an idiot, but right now I had realized something I should've a long time ago. The blond kid in my dream, it HAD to be Skye. It explains why he had the pugio from Camp Jupiter..

The winds kept raging relentlessly, taking the form of dark, smoky horses, Venti. I balled my fist, a surge of rage coursing through my body.

 _I'm the son of Hades_. I thought. Nobody hurts me and my friends and gets away like that. I channeled my rage, regaining stamina out of nowhere and clearing my mind from all thoughts. All, except death. A wave of darkness rolled from my legs as I stood up, the room turning pitch-black.

-"Paige Page. Find her." I ordered. I felt the tug for light and life of the undead coming from underneath. Like I said, NOBODY gets away like that. An exact 5 seconds passed by, and I heard a feminine scream coming from near the elevator doors. Light returned to the room.

-"Let me go!" Paige squealed, undead zombies dressed like greek soldiers grabbing her arms and legs, as if about to eat her alive. She was holding the soldiers back with a short knife, shorter than Skye's pugio, with one hand, and holding the glittering silver vase on the other. She struggled so much she ripped her jacket to shreds. I calmly walked up to her, as if I had all the time in the world.

-"The inverted vase. Now." I said with my eyes focused on the girl's form. She simply kept struggling, not answering.

"Alright then. Kill her.."

-"No! Wait!" she pleaded, throwing the vase up in the air. I caught it with both hands, feeling the warmth of the object. It smelled like Autumn leaves and ozone, just like the palace of that mad god, Eurus.

I snapped my fingers, the zombies crumbling to dust. Paige dropped to the ground, grasping for air helplessly. -"Curse..you..Camper.." she spat.

-"How delightful. I should kick you the way you did with my friend." I said coldly. Paige laughed again, but began coughing mid-laugh.

-"Foolish..*cough* Camper..*cough*"

I focused my mind, rushing to Destiny's side. She still had a few ambrosia squares on the Ziploc bag, which I took and force-fed to her. Her freckled face and blond hair regained color, then I did the same with Gustavo.

-"Go get Erin and Aeneas. Feed them ambrosia. Go!" I said, and they quickly ran with the bag. I turned back to Paige, who was still on the floor regaining her strength.

"Now..you'll answer my questions."

-"I would never help a Camper like you!" she growled back angered.

-"You're not in the position to say that." I replied with the same anger. I took a deep breath, then continued. "Who are you guys?"

-"I told you, I would never help you!"

I rolled my eyes. -"You're making this complicated."

-"That's the point, genius.."

-"Shut up."

-"You're the one telling me to talk!"

I facepalmed this time. -"Just answer my question already! Who are you?" I snapped. This girl was impossible to argue against, just like Erin..

Paige sighed. -"The name is Paige Page, daughter of Hecate. That's all you need to know."

..


	15. Chapter 15

-"I'll ask one final time." I began, holding back the urge of slicing Paige's head off. "Who ARE you guys, and what do you have against Camp Half-Blood."

The kneeling daughter of Hecate on the floor rolled her eyes with disdain. -"And I'll tell you one final time. I'M NOT TELLING YOU ANYTHING, CAMPER."

I swung my Stygian Iron sword towards Paige's neck, stopping inches away from the flesh. -"Hmm?" I grunted.

-"Nothing's coming out of this mouth. I would never help a Camper. And I know you wouldn't dare lay a finger on me."

I slowly jerked the sword, gently tapping her neck with the metal. Her face paled, and her eyes widened. "You wouldn't dare.."

I gave her a crooked smile, then though for a second about something threatening to say. This time, I'm going to play her game. -"I wonder how your head would look lodged at the Camp's Mess Hall." I said, licking my lips with a sadistic tone. Okay, certainly not my style. Never doing that ever again. Paige remained silent.

-"Five." I counted. "Four. Three. Two.."

..

-"One."

..

I honestly couldn't kill this girl like this. At least, not like this..I moved my sword away, then willed it back to ring form.

-"HA!" she exclaimed with pride. "You're too merciful to hurt me. That's a weakness you Campers all possess."

I looked down, then locked eyes with Paige. Her eyes were a weird mixture of brown, purple and green, that reflected vengeance and hatred. But they were also hiding something I couldn't make out just now.

-"What do you have against us campers anyways? Didn't you come from Camp Half-Blood too?"

Paige scowled, as if getting a flood of bad memories on her head. -"None of your business."

Footsteps echoed in the hall behind me, as the Hypnos twins came back, empty-handed. -"Bryan!" shouted Destiny, her dress slightly tattered from the previous wind attack.

-"Are you guys alright?" I asked, quickly scanning both of them with my eyes. Gustavo's tux was also torn and ripped, and his hair was a mess. That was not something new though.

-"Yes." said the male twin. Destiny glared at him. Gustavo glared back. And it turned into a staring contest between the children of Hypnos.

-"Great. More campers." Paige spat.

-"I'm not done with you yet, girl." I growled back at the exhausted daughter of Hecate. "What's wrong, you two?"

-"Gus is a bad twin." Destiny said with anger.

-"Des is being a little girl!" he complained, both of them scowling with their already identical faces.

-"Isn't that what you both are, though?" Paige added. I couldn't help but smile at that statement.

-"Shut up!" both of them said at the same time. Destiny pushed Gustavo back, who in turn pushed her back even more.

-"Okay, what does "bad twin" mean in your language..?" I asked. Destiny rushed towards her twin's mouth, covering it with both of her hands.

-"Don't tell him!" she yelled, her tone a mixture of worry, anger and embarassment, and her face flushing with a red color. Gustavo's muffled scream made it seem the more awkward.

-"Um.."

-"Great..I'll just go through this elevator.." Paige muttered out loud. I only had to give her a death glare so she would freeze in place. "Or not.."

Finally, Gustavo managed to force his twin off, and yelled out loud. -"Des loves-", but was interrupted by Destiny tackling him and pinning him to the ground, and repeating the process.

-"Who does she love?" I asked, with a tad of curiosity in my tone. Destiny's face was now completely red.

-"No one! Now shut up!" she finally ordered. Then, I heard more footsteps, as I noticed a chocolate-haired kid with a tattered tuxedo coming back to our area.

-"Hey Bryan!" he shouted excitedly. I could see Gustavo smiling maliciously. Destiny looked like she had seen a ghost.

-"Hey! Are you okay, Aeneas?" I shouted back. He apparently didn't notice that Destiny was now on top of Gustavo, pinning him down and covering his mouth.

-"Yeah..that girl tricked me with the thermos.." he said, until he noticed that Paige was kneeling on the floor, unable to move.

-"No harsh feelings?" she said with a smile. Aeneas simply glared at her, completely poker-faced. "Any news on our sunshine? A.K.A Erin." he commented.

-"She's at the bar, trying to fix herself up." Destiny said nervously. Aeneas looked at her uncomfortably (this time he did notice) and simply nodded. I looked around at the mess that was the Event Room. Wooden table pieces lying on the ground, along with sulfurous monster dust and broken glasses from the windows. The glittering silver floor remained completely unscathed. How had Skye called it? Royal Silver..the same material that knocked Fortuna out, and the same material the inverted vase was made out of.

-"Will you answer my questions now?" I asked Paige. Aeneas looked at her with his color-changing eyes. Destiny and Gustavo kept fighting like two lion cubs with nothing better to do.

Paige sighed. -"Will you let me go, if I do? Son of Hades?"

-"Don't call me that."

-"I'll answer three questions with the truth. I swear on the Styx." she cut.

-"And I swear on the Styx that I'll let you go, if you answer with the truth."

I thought for a second what to ask her. I had to be very careful, since I only had three chances before I had to free her. Or else take the consequences of a broken promise on the Styx..yeah no. Aeneas leaned to my ear, and muttered something. _-"Ask her who they really are."_

I nodded.

-"Who are you guys, really?"

Paige remained silent for the first few seconds, frowning at the questions. Then she opened her mouth.

-"My name is Paige Page, daughter of Hecate. I'm an enemy of Camp Half-Blood, and all of it's Campers. My partner is Skye, son of Mercury.."

-"I know who he is." I interrupted, the memories of my dream flooding back.

-"There's your answer. You have two more."

I thought again. Aeneas leaned a second time, and whispered. _"What were they doing here?"_ and again, I nodded.

-"What were you doing here?"

As if she had heard the question, she instantly answered. -"We were sent by another demigod to find the inverted vase, and bring him the head of the son of Hades. So..we both came here, with my magical powers I could track down the twins summoning the Oneiroi, and I hired them to hunt you down.." she paused, gasping for air, "and it was all careful planning for you to eventually arrive here, looking for the goddess Fortuna and the inverted vase. What I did not expect, was this to happen.." she looked away. "You have one more."

This time, I already knew what I would ask.

-"Why do you hate Camp Half-Blood so much?" I blurted out. Paige's eyes widened, reflecting even more hatred and anger than last time. It was eerie, but I could somehow feel her emotions pouring out like steam from boiling water.

-"Your stupid Camp.." she spat.

-"It's not stupid!" I barked. "People there are nice, and it's like a home to me.." Aeneas didn't say anything logically.

-"People? Weren't you the outcast of the Camp for like a month until you became a celebrity?" she said. I balled my fists at her question.

-"Who told you that?"

-"My employer."

-"And who's your employer?"

-"You've ran out of questions, son of Hades. I'm sorry."

-"You haven't answered his question!" Aeneas yelled angrily.

-"Sorry, gotta go.." Paige said, getting up quickly and waving her purple nails, as if to cast a spell. Mist started to coil around her body, which quickly faded out until it was barely a silhouette. Then it stopped, a sudden flash of light interrupting the spell mid-cast, Paige shrieking with surprise.

-"What..?!" And we all turned. I felt relieved to see Erin was alright, with only minor scratches on her legs and the usual tatters on her sunflower dress.

-"Hello. Miss me?" she asked with her usualy, cocky tone. I had to smile at this. And so did Aeneas. "What are you two doing?" she immediately asked the twins.

-"Uh, ignore them." I said, while they kept struggling and fighting with each other.

Paige glared at Erin with anger. -"Alright, this will be the LAST time we meet each other like this. I promise the next time, I'm going to kill all of you." she said, as if she was the one in command here. I quickly raised my sword. I also felt something similar to Paige's emotions pouring out like steam, but it was different this time. It felt like a knife hidden in the mist, moving through each of us. Paige snapped her fingers, and I was surprised to see Skye magically poofing in front of us, completely awake.

-"Miss me?" he said, doing a very bad imitation of Erin's voice. I felt completely tense now, knowing if it hadn't been for the twins, I would've been killed by this guy. His face was as always, as cold as a glacier, with no remorses of murder attempt.

-"By the way, while you were attending your fellow demigods," Paige said, pointing with her manicured finger to the twins, "I managed to break the sleeping spell and hide Skye within my Mist." she finished with an air of superiority.

-"Good job. Don't care." Erin said bluntly, a sphere of light forming on her hand, ready to attack. "On your mark, Death Boy."

I scowled at the nickname, but I was too nervous to actually attack the son of Mercury. In fact, if he had beaten my five skeletons in less than three seconds, how was a bunch of defenseless kids any different?

-"Don't be scared, Bryan." Aeneas said happily. _Sure, you weren't the one who had gotten stabbed earlier_ , I thought. "We'll protect you with our lives." and then I felt guilty for thinking that last thing.

-"How moving. But like I said, we're not going to kill you this time. We've already gotten what we wanted, so we're leaving this place. Though, if we cross paths again, it won't end like this." Paige said.

-"I guarantee you it won't." I growled back. Then, both Paige and Skye's forms dissipated into Mist. They had the inverted vase.

-"We lost." I said, defeated.

-"No, we have not lost!" Erin exclaimed. Then she grabbed my hand, and grabbed Aeneas', who grabbed Destiny who grabbed Gustavo. Apparently they had solved their differences or whatever already.

-"What are you doing, Erin?"

-"We're jumping."

-"WHAT!" everybody said. Without another word, Erin ran towards a wide open, shattered window and of course, SHE HAD TO DRAG ME WITH HER.

-"ERIN STOP, THIS IS A BAD IDEA!" I yelled, but it was too late. Wind was now slapping our cheeks as we lept the insanely tall Alpha and Omega hotel. I could feel Aeneas, Destiny and Gustavo a few feet above us too.

-"WHAAAAAAAATT" I yelled.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

-"ERIN, WHAT IN TARTARUS ARE YOU DOING?!" I yelled, the wind bulleting into my mouth, forcing it open. Tears gushed out of my eyes due to the sheer amount of wind pressure from the free fall.

-"We just lept from a 70 stories tall tower, Death Boy! How does it feel?" she yelled back, her body a flurry of black, and (somehow) her magical bronze headphones still in place.

-"Oh, just a comfy and cozy landing on the asphalt streets of Las Vegas.." I replied with notorious sarcasm.

As the diversely-colored neon lights from the city drew near us, death seemed certain right now. Weird enough, I wasn't scared at all from crashing and probably dying now. Maybe that's another of the perks of being the son of Hades.

 _Ah well, this is where it ends,_ I thought. That was until a loud thud and intense pain spiking up in my rear pulled me out of my thoughts, realizing I had landed in a golden, red and yellow flying chariot led by a pair of white pegasi lashed by ropes.

-"Ah!" I shrieked from the sudden pain and surprise, after noticing the lanky, blond haired individual driving the chariot, Will Solace. At his side was my new brother, Nico di Angelo.

-"Hey Bryan." he said completely calmed. His black hair fell over his onyx eyes that mimicked mine, nearly scratching the black skull T-shirt he was known to wear a lot. "Want some pomegranate juice?" he asked, while taking a sip of the blood red liquid from an used Dasani water bottle.

I simply stared back. Apparently Nico hadn't realized the fact that I had just lept from a 70 story tall building and casually landed on a chariot to a random place.

-"Hey Neeks." I replied, but before I could say anything else, Will interrupted me. -"Jayyyy-suuuuuun! Get the other ones!" he yelled, then abruptly turned the chariot 90 degrees to the left, a blur rapidly crash landing on the other side of the chariot, shaking it due to it's weight. The blur had been Aeneas.

-"I'M ALIVE!" he shrieked with joy, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me. -"Yeah, I can see that." I simply said. Nico chuckled.

-"You're probably wondering what's happening here." he said. I took the Dasani bottle from his hands, chugged down half of the pomegranate juice then handed it back. "Chiron ordered us to track you down, he said you guys might need some help leaping from the Alpha and Omega Hotel."

Aeneas and I nodded. -"Us?" I asked.

-"Yeah, Neeks, Jason, Piper and me." Will answered. I noticed another chariot flying several feet from us, Jason on the lead. They had caught the twins and Erin.

-"Where are we going?" Aeneas asked, fixing his tuxedo up. Nico scratched his head, then looked back at Will.

-"Chiron says to go back to Alexandria, confront the escaping demigods and take the twins back to Camp Jupiter. It's too dangerous for them to keep going." Will said.

As much as I liked the Hypnos twins, it certainly was proving dangerous for them to keep going on this quest. The point of them being on the quest was rescuing them and the other lost demigods in the first place.

-"You can't take them away! They can be kids, but they are very useful!" Aeneas protested. Nico glanced over at him, his face serious. Whenever he got like this, I got very scared, but I knew Nico would never hurt me.

-"Listen, kid.." he began.

-"Don't call me kid." Aeneas barked back. I had never seen him this tilted before. Nico's eyes widened, but then his expression pacified. I think I understood this: Nico saw Aeneas like himself as a kid his age. Nobody expected him to do anything useful, other than being a burden to everybody. -"We'll see what Chiron thinks. But now, we have to get those two traitors before it's too late."

-"How are we getting from Las Vegas to Virginia in so little time though? The chariots will take hours to fly back." I said, but it took me three seconds to realize what Nico's aloof smile meant. Probably the thing I dreaded the most right now: shadow travel.

-"You probably know what we're doing by now, right?" Nico said. An anchor plummeted from my throat to my stomach, and my heart seemed to race faster every passing second.

-"Nico, we can't do this. I'm not ready to shadow travel yet.." I said. Nico put his larger hand on my hand, then locked eyes with me. In his onyx eyes, I could see mine reflecting fear and powerlessness. My hands and legs were trembling like I had been standing in the North Pole on boxers.

-"Bryan. I'll help you. Just focus on the shadows, and make sure to assert your presence. You're Bryan Rodriguez, son of Hades. The shadows obey your single command, as long as you don't let go of your control."

-"Nico! I can't do this, I'm going to mess it all up!" I shouted, then let go off his hand. I was breathing hard. Aeneas put his hand on my back.

-"You can do it Bryan! Just do what Nico tells you and we'll be alright." Aeneas comforted me. I wasn't sure if it was charmspeak or not, but it did calm me down.

I looked down, twirling the black ring in my finger nervously. My legs and hands stopped shaking, and again I locked eyes with my brother. -"Ready?" he asked, then took my hand again.

-"Ready." I said. Nico gently tapped Will while he led the chariot, who turned the chariot again. I looked down, gazing upon the darkened alley Morpheus had attacked us at. Outside the alley, raging city noises, bright neon lights and advertisements filled the asphalt jungle of Vegas. But inside, it was the pure darkness of Morpheus' remnant dream powers.

-"That will be our shadow." Nico confirmed. Will shouted over at Jason and Piper's chariot, signaling them to fly down to the alley. "We'll land, and then grab everybody's hand. After that, you'll know what to do."

-"Sounds like a plan." Aeneas said. I was too tense to say anything, so I simply nodded meekly. Will said something in Ancient Greek, and the pegasi began flying downwards, eventually galloping across the dirty alley floor and stopping the chariot completely. It wasn't long until the other chariot landed also. Jason, Piper, the twins and Erin got off, along with Aeneas, Will, Nico and myself.

-"Hey, Bryan!" Jason Grace high-fived me. "Oh, and you must be Michael's brother." he said when he saw Aeneas, high-fiving him also.

-"Let's get this over with, Jason." Nico bluntly spat. The taller son of Apollo was hugging his sister, and Piper was fixing Destiny's attire.

-"Jeez, calm down Neeks." Jason said carefreely. Nico glared at him. Then he looked at the pitch-black shadow that extended in front of us, grabbing my hand. Then he grabbed Will's hand, who grabbed Erin's hand, who grabbed Destiny's hand, etc etc.

-"At the count of three." Nico ordered. My heart raced a trillion miles an hour. I focused on the pitch-black darkness, and asserted my presence. Bryan Rodriguez, son of Hades who controls the shadows.

-"One."

..

-"Two."

..

-"Three!" Nico yelled, and we all ran. The darkness dissolved around us for a second, and I felt completely detached from the world. I couldn't feel Nico or Jason's hands anymore. All I could hear were whispers from the souls and numbing cold grazing my flesh. Complete and absolute solitude.

The shadows seemed to part away, revealing not the outside world but a silver, razor sharp serpent row of fangs, grinning creepily at me.

-"I await you at Delphi, son of Hades. Python, the earth serpent." the voice said, sounding just like Gaea from my previous dreams.

-"I'm coming for you, Python." I replied boldly. The row of teeth disappeared, as light hurt my eyes. We all knelt on the grass, my body twitching and craving the warm feeling of life. My strength quickly dissipated from wasting energy shadow travelling, and I could feel Nico doing the same. His skin paled more than usual, and his eyes seemed hollow and tired.

-"Will..ambrosia.." he hissed. Will took some ambrosia squares out, and force fed them to his boyfriend, then did the same to me.

-"Thank you.." I groaned painfully. Normally, ambrosia would make me feel good as new instantly, but this one just made me feel slightly less dead. Just enough strength to stand up. Aeneas let his hand out, and I took it to lift me up, resting my torso on his shoulder. Okay, nevermind the "enough strength" part, I was nearly going to faint.

-"Easy, Death Boy." Erin said happily.

-"Don't call me Death Boy." both Nico and I said, and I noticed Nico was also resting his body on Will. I laughed at this, then began coughing mid-laugh from the tiredness.

-"We're in Virginia!" Erin cheerfully said, while Jason lifted her up. She held her arms out to the sides, as if she was in the Titanic. _Wait..what?_ I asked myself mentally, then blinked my eyes rapidly. Instead of Erin, it was Piper. Maybe I'm seeing things from exhaustion..?

-"Now, we need to find the traitors." Aeneas said, readying his gladius. The twins were playing on the grass like the little kids they were, messing up their fancy clothes more than they already were and getting them all dirty.

I finally stood up, and so did Nico. The chariots had stayed behind in Las Vegas, just like Fortuna did in the Alpha and Omega Hotel. I wondered what would happen to her body, or what happened to all the monsters that were sent to Tartarus. I'd never been there, but Nico had told me stories from it. And it was not nice.

-"I have an idea," Jason began, "You guys got to the East Wind Palace thanks to a venti, right?"

-"Uh huh."

-"Then, watch this." he said, and chanted in Ancient Greek. Instantly, black lightning and vapor swirled and crackled in front of Jason, forming a ventus. "Say hello to Tempest." then he pet the wind horse.

-"Hello, Tempest." Erin greeted. Tempest neighed, sounding more like crackling lightning than a normal neigh.

-"I didn't mean literally, but okay." Jason said, adjusting his glasses. Piper grabbed his arm, resting her head on it. Nico did the same to Will.

I could feel what was coming.

-"This is where we part." Nico said. He glanced over at the playful twins. They didn't deserve to be kidnapped then forced to go on a near-suicidal mission to the other side of the world at the age of eleven. Sure, Aeneas was the same age, but he wished to prove himself on his own free will.

-"Take them, Nico." Aeneas finally conceded. I was surprised he let this matter go so easily, knowing how stubborn he could be sometimes.

-"Piper." Nico muttered. Piper went over to the grass, calming the twins down. Both of them looked back at Erin, Aeneas and I, who were already getting on top of Tempest.

-"Where are they going?" Destiny asked, pointing to us. Gustavo stared blankly at us, his lavender eyes lost and saddened. Piper knelt down, explaining the whole situation to the twins. But we had already left for the palace of Eurus, leaving the Hypnos twins completely betrayed.

Aeneas crossed his arms and scowled the whole trip, not saying a single word. Nico and the others had left to take the twins back to Camp. Tempest soared across the skies, taking us to a bed of clouds leading to the glittering, Royal Silver palace of the East Wind. We lept off, landing on the invisible pathway, ignoring the aurae and other venti. How Paige and Skye had arrived before us was beyond me. Erin fixed her hair after we traversed the living hurricane inside the ozone and autumn-smelling palace. The large doors to Eurus' chamber opened. Light seeped in, as my heart sank when I saw what was inside. The mad god Eurus was lying on the floor, Skye pointing his Royal Silver dagger to his throat, while Paige calmly stayed behind with the inverted vase.

-"Stop!" I yelled, then quickly sprinted towards the two demigods. My Stygian Iron sword materialized, as I motioned it towards Skye's dagger, striking him with the hilt on the wrist, making him drop the dagger to the floor.

-"Yes! Help, finally!" Eurus said with his anticlimatic, anime girl voice. Paige snapped her fingers.

-"Hrumph.." she grunted, "You guys are seriously persistent, aren't you?" and her form vanished, leaving traces of mist behind.

Skye turned towards me. Instantly, I could sense the pain of the wound he stabbed me in earlier. " _Focus Bryan, this is all in your mind."_ I thought, then sensed the kid I saw in my dreams was this guy. Deep within, there had to be some mercy.

-"I won't kill you if you leave now." I said.

-"Bold statement, son of Hades." I heard Paige's voice. Then, mist swirled around Erin's body, and I saw Paige appearing behind her, her painted nails wielding a Celestial Bronze knife to her throat. "But you're not in the position to do that now."

Then, a blur of yellow and I heard a metallic clanging from Aeneas' gladius. Skye was also holding him, knife to throat.

-".." I remained silent.

-"Oooh, this is getting interesting.." Eurus commented, eating some popcorn from a bag I was pretty sure wasn't there seconds ago.

-"Now, what will you do..?" Paige asked cockily. I looked at my friends, their faces reflecting fear but security at the same time. They wanted me to finish the quest, but I couldn't bring myself to let them die. I focused on the situation. Wait..

I glanced over at Paige, noticing how the vase wasn't in her hands anymore. She had probably hidden it somewhere with her Mist manipulation..but where?

-"You have ten seconds to decide, or their throats will say bye." Paige ordered.

-"That sounded very cliched, just saying." I barked back. I dropped my sword, it clanging on the clouded floor, then raised my hands. -"We'll leave." I said.

-"Bryan, no!" Erin yelled, but Paige gently scratched her neck with the knife. -"Shush girl."

I muttered under my breath, in Ancient Greek. I wasn't sure raising the dead from a bunch of clouds worked out, but it was worth a try. A skeletal hand raised up from the clouded floor, grazing the glittering silver vase I had now detected with my senses.

-"Now, leave." Paige demanded. I slowly walked, my boots making loud steps on the floor, when I ordered in my mind a throw. As soon as the demigods let my friends go, the skeletal hand launched the vase in the air, landing flawlessly on my hands.

-"Hmm?" I grunted cockily, a smile playing across my lips. Paige and Skye looked completely dumbfounded.

-"What..?! That was a perfect illusion!" Paige shouted.

-"Not perfect enough to fool me." I remarked, then Eurus got up, taking the vase back. His mad eyes sparked with blue electricity, his powers surging back.

Paige looked at Skye nervously, as if planning their retreat.

-"I wouldn't try leaving the domain of a wind god like that." Eurus said, his anime girl voice changing to a deep, elderly masculine voice.

Aeneas grabbed his sword, and quickly readied to battle. Skye smiled, his body blurring towards my form, and all I could see was the metallic point of this dagger nearing my heart.

-"Haha, nope." Eurus casually said, and blasted the son of Mercury back with autumn-reeking wind. Skye crashed back to the clouded floor, scratches along his body.

-"It seems like we can't fight you here." Paige admitted.

-"She's a smart one." Erin said. I nodded.

-"What shall I do with them? Give me ideas." the mad god said. "Oh, I know!" he shouted before anyone could answer. The clouded floor under both demigods simply vanished, and both of them fell like it was a trapdoor.

-"Savage." I said.

-"Indeed." Eurus nodded. "Now, it's time for you to head to Delphi! Time runs short on you, young demigods."

I remembered the Python's challenge. This time, it was my moment to fight. Tomorrow will be the day when I kill the earth serpent.

-"How will we get there, oh Lord Eurus?" Aeneas asked.

Eurus chuckled. "Simple. Shadow travel."

-"WHAT?!" we all yelled. -"I shadow travelled with the help of my brother, and nearly died!"

Eurus glanced over at me. -"You, Bryan Rodriguez, have the blessing of Fortuna. You won the Wheel of Fortune game, so you have both her blessing and mine for returning the inverted vase."

-"So..that means I have good luck?" I said.

-"Mhm." Eurus confirmed. I looked at both of my friends, their faces giving me the confidence to try to shadow travel.

-"What if I fail the shadow travel?" I asked.

-"You die." Eurus bluntly said.

-"Ooh, fun."

-"It's not fun."

-"Well, where is the shadow anyways?" I asked. Eurus pointed his finger to the autumn tree, it expanding and growing until it cast a shade large enough for the three of us.

-"Right there."

-"Where exactly are we going?"

-"Your best bet is thinking you'll land on Delphi. And that you won't die. Now go, before I send you away like I did to the other ones." the god ordered.

-"Fine.." I groaned, then took Erin's hand. It was sweaty and soft. Aeneas gave me his hand, and I gazed over at the shade. -"At the count of three."

-"One." Erin said.

-"Two." Aeneas said.

-"Three!" I said, then we ran to the shadow, focusing on "Delphi" and letting the shadows take over my form. All the light and warmth dissipated, replaced by intense cold and pitch-black darkness.


	17. Chapter 17

**No, your eyes are not fooling you. After a hiatus of about 2 months, I, Kaer, bring you here chapter 17 of this story. I'd like to thank all of you readers who have followed my story and still like to read it even though it took me 2 months to finish this one chapter. Enjoy! : ) - Kaer**

Woo, darkness again. It seems like I somehow always end up in pitch-black absolute obscurity every so often. Hisses echoed all across the, um..tunnel? I don't really know how to describe a mass of pure nothing but darkness with my words, so try to figure it out on your own.

-"Bryan.." I heard Erin's voice hiss in my ear. A cold hand (I hoped it was a hand) grazed my arm, sending a chill through my entire body. I couldn't feel Aeneas' or Erin's hands anymore. Now, this was a situation Nico had always warned me about: the whispers of the deceased during shadow travel.

-"Shut up, okay? I'm not in the mood." I ordered with a demanding tone, and all the hisses immediately silenced. That was easier than I thought. If this whole Blessing of Fortuna thing Eurus had told us about was true, then by now we should be appearing above Delphi, about to crash land as usual in demigod tales.

In the blink of an eye, (even though I couldn't see anything..) the darkness parted out and an annoyingly harsh sunlight hurt my eyes. I couldn't feel my legs or arms anymore. Literally every part of my body was dead cold (no pun intended), as if I were a living ice cube, so that's probably why the normal sunlight seemed so intense. I was unable to move for around ten whole seconds, until mobility began coursing through my fingers and eventually through my entire body. I got up, groaning loudly, and for once realizing how grateful I was for being able to breathe fresh air. I wasn't sure what exactly you "breathed" during shadow travel, but it certainly wasn't pleasant.

-"Where to, Death Boy?" I heard Erin's voice call, as always I had to twitch at the nickname. Both the daughter of Apollo and Aeneas looked as pale as I normally did, certainly aftereffects from shadow travelling, even when I had the blessings of two gods. Speaking of which, what exactly happened to Fortuna after she got stabbed? Maybe that's a story for another day.

-"Where even are we?" Aeneas asked. I hadn't taken a second to admire the ruined Greek platform we stood now in, surrounded by several slopes and mountains. There were five mossy broken columns in front of us, and a sixth one that stood taller than the other ones.

-"The Temple of Apollo." Erin commented. Knowing her parentage, questioning her remark would be pretty foolish.

-"Oh, so where's the snake?" Aeneas pulled out his gladius, which stood double the size of the little kid, yet he fought with it like it was a feather.

-"Maybe we should call Chiron, or something. Actually, do you remember what the prophecy said?" I actually hadn't given much thought to Rachel's prophecy. Mostly because I didn't understand the whole thing, but maybe it would be important now.

Erin cleared her throat. -"Greeks and roman shall slay the snake, it's hissing and roaring the land will shake.." she paused. "In the land below, the dragon's bane they'll find.."

-"Check that." I said, materializing my Stygian Iron sword. "Dragon's bane."

-"The spawn of death leads the way blind.." Erin kept going. This whole "leads the way blind" part, I could never understand. "In the Ancient Lands his blood will wake, a fate to both worse than death can make." she concluded.

-"I love how we're just where the prophecy tells us to go, and we still don't understand anything." I commented. Aeneas laughed.

Suddenly, my death sense began tingling on both of my temples, making me shiver and tremble back slightly.

-"Guys..this is bad.." was all I managed to say while I rubbed both of my temples, trying to concentrate on what was coming near us.

-"What is?" Aeneas asked innocently, before the buzzing of a missed arrow sailed past my ear, nearly grazing my skin.

Erin shrieked in pain, as I noticed another of the arrows had hit it's target, which unfortunately had been Erin's abdomen. It was bleeding and Erin's expression looked incredibly pained. I saw Aeneas rush to her aid, but the arrows would eventually get us all killed if we didn't act fast.

-"Run to the ledge!" I commanded, Aeneas dragging Erin along, while I also ran, deflecting arrows coming in our direction with my sword. They seemed to be endless..all coming from the forest directly in front of the columns. The ledge was all mossy and mother nature (Gaea?) had taken over most of the rubble. We lept a short jump, but we all seemed to get tired faster. Was this another sideffect from shadow travel? We stopped in a marble alley a few feet from our jump, the vast blue sea reflecting the sunlight with a shimmering white color. A few feet south our direction, was a still-functioning, marble water fountain, which somehow was completely clean and untouched by the vines. There were many stranglethorns and vines all over the broken marble columns. We all panted tiredly, but Erin even more due to her bleeding wound.

-"Ambrosia." Aeneas said, but Erin shook her head twice, pulling out the arrow from her abdomen without flinching.

-"This is fine." she said, though her expression reflected the exact opposite.

-"Erin, it's alright if we need to rest." I added, but Erin's eyes were fixated on the cracked stone floor we stood on.

-"Rutuli." she said. Aeneas's eyes widened as soon as she said this weird word.

-"That's.." he paused, "That's the name of an Italic tribe.." he put his hands on his temples. I hadn't realized it, but my death sense had stopped tingling, so I could focus better. And I focused on the male roman soldier dressed in full, Imperial Gold armor, that had somehow appeared in front of us, sporting a red-feathered helmet that barely revealed his pale face and yellow slits for eyes.

-"It's a zombie." I instantly knew. "Maybe if I.." I commanded the roman zombie to walk towards us, and so he did.

-"It's not roman." Aeneas said. "It's a Rutuli. Their leader was the final enemy of my namesake, Aeneas."

-"Ooh. The kid knows some history, it seems." commented an unknown female voice, coming behind us.

-"Are you a talking fountain?" Aeneas asked the white fountain. Erin had pulled out her bow, nocking an arrow pointed to the Rutuli.

-"You brats these days have no respect over goddesses, do you?" the fountain asked, and I felt the urge to retort instantly, and so I did.

-"Maybe if most of you didn't try to murder us or play sadistic Wheel of Fortune games, we would respect you more."

A flash of light. A flash of light brighter than anything Erin had done before, left me dazed and completely vulnerable. Before I knew it, the Rutulian zombie had armed himself with a massive, Imperial Gold double warhammer about ten times larger than my head, that also was about to smash me to nothingness.

-"Bryan, move!" Erin called, but I was too dazed to do anything. I was pulled back by another force, which I recognized as the son of Venus, who hadn't been dazed at all by the light. The warhammer hit the floor, cracking it completely, though we stood fine. The Rutulian zombie had grown double in size, it's bulging, veiny muscles also expanding.

-"Say hello to Turnus, son of Venus." said the fountain nonchalantly. Above the fountain, now stood a middle-aged woman with painted red nails and a really, REALLY, long black hair, that covered her face and toes completely.

"Juturna, roman goddess of fountains, wells and springs. And that right there," she pointed her red nails to the Rutulian zombie, "Is Turnus. Leader of the Rutuli tribe, slain by the original Aeneas thousands of years ago."

-"Great. Another killer goddess to add to our collection." Erin commented sarcastically, creating a sphere of light with her powers. I stood now ready to fight with my sword.

-"Yeah, that's not gonna happen, son of Hades." Juturna retorted, snapping her fingers. I noticed several words inscripted in black Latin magically appearing around all of us bar the fountain, which I couldn't read.

"Only a true son of Venus can defeat Turnus. The other ones may not fight." she dictated. I felt a vibration across my body, and I couldn't move anymore. My sword went back to ring form, and another force pulled both Erin and I outside the fighting area limited by the black words.

-"What..Aeneas is only a kid, he can't die fighting that monster!" Erin yelled back, irradiating anger. If Juturna hadn't taken her powers away, she probably would've incinerated the entire temple with her light. The chocolate-haired boy, now wielding his gladius, glanced back at us.

-"It's okay guys, I got this." he said, though his tone wasn't as cheerful as the Aeneas I knew. Turnus repeated his last attack, this time a lot faster, his warhammer sending such wind pressure I could feel it from my relatively safe spot. Aeneas lept back, dodging the smashing hit, which cracked the floor even more, then lunged with his gladius, which simply clanged against the Imperial Gold armor. Juturna laughed maniatically.

-"IT'S REVENGE. REVENGE FOR KILLING TURNUS THE FIRST TIME." she shouted, then resumed her laughter. Aeneas quickly dashed by Turnus' side, probably looking for a weak spot in his back.

-"I can't watch this." Erin worriedly closed her eyes. Then Juturna snapped her fingers, forcing them open.

-"You're going to watch your friend get killed. The same way I watched my brother get killed once." she said, with a dead serious tone.

-"Just wait for Aeneas to kill him again. Then I myself will send him to the Fields of Punishment." I replied with anger.

-"Ohoho..bold statement for a kid who can't even summon a dead rat." the black haired goddess said. I remained silent, unable to grip my fist due to my immobility.

-"Ha!" Aeneas shouted in triumph, slashing at Turnus' thigh with such strength the massive zombie lost his balance. Turnus fell back, though there wasn't a single crack in his armor. While he remained on the cracked marble ground, Aeneas relentlessly lunged, jabbed and hacked at his gold chestplate, not making a single visible scratch.

-"It won't break!" he yelled, and Turnus quickly regained balance, standing on his feet and now kicking Aeneas, sending him flying to the ledge. His expression looked pained, but he got up again like a tireless roman soldier.

-"This is the brother of Michael Kahale, centurion of the First Cohort." Juturna commented. Wait..what. _Aeneas Kahale._.of course! How couldn't I know this before?

Turnus giggled, sending his warhammer with a swing towards the ledge, and Aeneas rolled under the hammer, about to repeat his attack to Turnus' thigh.

-"Dead." Turnus commented with a low, gnarled voice, feinting his previous swing and with unseen speed, he hit Aeneas' entire body with the hammer.

-"Aeneas!" both Erin and I yelled. Juturna kept laughing. Turnus pulled back the warhammer, as if Aeneas had already died. The roman boy got up again, completely bruised, trembling and bleeding. Apparently, that last attack had broken his left leg, so he couldn't run away, and he kept his left eye closed, his clothes soaked in blood.

-"I'm not dying here..I've got to.. come back to the Legion. I have to see Michael proud for once.." somehow he said, coughing out blood after this. Turnus looked at him stranged, and in a blink, the warhammer went towards Aeneas' direction again, and this time he couldn't dodge.

-"For Rome!" he cried, swinging his gladius for the last time. The gladius clashed against the warhammer, slipping out from his grip, sent flying away from Aeneas, then hitting the little boy again. Juturna laughed again, this time in an even more sadistic way.

-"DID YOU SEE HOW HE GOT SMASHED? DID YOU SEE IT?" she kept saying. But this time..she was right. I could feel Aeneas' presence, not exactly in the world of the living.


End file.
